Pike River families are meeting with Prime Minister Bill English for the first time this afternoon in what they hope will be an end to a six-year impasse over re-entering the coal mine.
The families will be backed by the Government's former chief mines inspector Tony Forster, who has travelled from Australia to be at the meeting in the Beehive.
Forster, who was chief inspector from 2013 to 2016, believes the Pike River mine's drift can be re-entered safely - contrary to advice provided to the mine's owner and state-owned enterprise Solid Energy.
The families plan to brief English on a report they commissioned which shows how the drift could be safety reclaimed.
One of their goals is to get an independent inquiry which can cut through conflicting advice on the feasibility of re-entering the mine on the South Island's West Coast.