John Armstrong: Key puts families first with inquiry upgrade

Prime minister John key and Pike River Coal CEO Peter Whittall. Photo / Simon Baker

Sometimes it is the little things which count.

John Key did not have to elevate the expected commission of inquiry into the Pike River Coal disaster to royal commission status - the highest level possible.

Yesterday's Cabinet decision will make little material difference to the investigation's proceedings because both forms of inquiry have the same powers.

The 1995 inquiry into the collapse of the viewing platform at Cave Creek, which killed 13 students and a DoC staff member, was a one-man commission of inquiry conducted by a District Court judge.

Upgrading the three-person Pike River Coal inquiry, however, is a gesture which will be appreciated by the families of the 29 dead miners.

It shows how serious the Prime Minister is about finding out what happened in the mine and ensuring it never happens again.

Equally savvy is the appointment of High Court judge Graham Panckhurst to chair the royal commission.

The judge, who presided over the David Bain retrial, will understand the West Coast's unique psyche, having spent several years as the region's crown solicitor.

Key has played things absolutely by the book since the first blast at the mine 11 days ago. He would invite criticism if he hadn't. But he seems to have deliberately avoided the kind of bureaucratic inertia which dictates things are done in a certain way following such a catastrophe because they have always been done that way.

Even allowing for the sheer scale of the disaster, there seems to be more humanity than usual in the Government's response.

Maybe that is down to Key's personal experience and empathy derived from growing up in a single-parent household - something with which some of the miners' families will be struggling to come to grips.

Maybe it is because those families are unlikely to get "closure" through recovery of the bodies.

And, of course, politics always lurks in the background as a prime incentive to get things right.

But the commission's broad terms of reference approved by the Cabinet yesterday would suggest Key is not playing politics.

Those terms will put the spotlight on the actions - or absence of action - by ministers of labour, including the current one. In that regard Key has put the miners' families ahead of the Pike River Coal company, Government officials and the politicians.

At the same time, he hasn't strung those families along by giving them false hope. He has been blunt about the mine staying shut until the royal commission reports. That could be up to a year away - even longer if preceding inquiries by the police and Department of Labour recommend prosecutions for lax health and safety.

That would put the commission's proceedings on hold as legal action elsewhere could not be seen to be prejudicing the commission's findings.

Key has refused to put someone with a trade union background on the commission for the same reason.

And after all that, the mine may well remain closed.

The Prime Minister could never have imagined such a scenario when he began the political year by citing mining as a driver of economic growth especially if mineral deposits in national parks could be "unlocked".

That idea got the kibosh after a public backlash.

Worse, Pike River Coal was held up as an example of how mines could operate without compromising environmental standards. The awkward question now is whether meeting environmental standards has compromised miners' safety.

The Government's mining policy is in tatters. Restoring investor confidence can be achieved only through the mechanism of an independent and transparent commission of inquiry.

And that's another, perhaps less obvious reason for attaching the word "royal" to its title.