A brief word on Pike River blood money

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Just when you didn’t think the horror story of Pike river could get any worse, to avoid highlighting the Crown’s own role in killing 29 men, they have let the bosses walk free after paying some blood money…

The offer of money made to the Pike River families from the mine’s former boss doesn’t look good, Prime Minister John Key says.

He was speaking just a day after all 12 charges against former Pike River Coal chief Peter Whittall were dropped.

When you consider the cabinet didn’t bother looking at their moral obligations to act for the families, when you consider it was the totally unregulated environment that saw these men die and when you consider our work environment is so deadly for workers – when you consider all that, allowing these buggers to walk is a slap in the face to every single one of us as citizens.

It is an indictment on how far backwards NZ has gone when 29 men can die at work in an unregulated industry & no one is held responsible. This is 2013, not bloody 1813!

The country should hang its head in shame at what has been revealed by our neo-liberal deregulated madness.

5 COMMENTS

  1. The justification that this money would have been spent on lawyers anyway and can now be donated to the families is an obscenity. After all, Mr Whittall, nobody was MAKING you defend yourself. You could have (finally) stepped up and accepted your part in the dreadful decision-making and management practices that killed these men, left their families grieving and ripped apart their community. It would have been difficult and demanded courage, but it would also have been the right thing to do. Yes, pay the families compensation (as if that’s ever really possible when we are talking about this kind of loss), but also face up to your role in the their deaths.

    • Suz,

      I also hold to account Bill Birch, Jim Bolger, successive Dept of Labour CEOs, with complicity by the Clark and Key-led governments.

      Every time a government conducts de-regulation leading to unintended (but wholly predictable) consequences, those Ministers responsible walk away scott free.

      Previous Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, accepted some measure of responsibility with her resignation, but that was simply Key throwing her under a truck just to assuage public opinion and media questions. She was no more responsible than the previous Labour government’s Minister of Labour.

      It’s high time government ministers were held to account for their actions, even years later down the track. they might think twice before meddling with health and safety laws purely for ideological purposes.

  2. Hey, absolutely – the politicians and the blinkered idiots who advised them that all red tape should be cut away because it was obstructing business and innovation and that there was no role for Nanny State also have blood on their hands. They enabled the situation that Whittall and his pals exploited. I hope they have all been confronted by their peers and examined their consciences closely. Note that I don’t say that I expect or believe all of them to have done this.

    To be honest, I haven’t followed the details of this saga closely enough to know whether individual advisors or ministers were deemed to have had a crucial role in the unfolding tragedy of Pike River. I think there are probably some local politicians and business people who should also be questioning their championing of coal mining and other resource-depleting and dangerous industries on the West Coast.

  3. This scandalous development does not surprise me one bit, to be honest. It is common that the rich and the corporations get off in court cases, much more common than even the mainstream media usually report on.

    Whittall is walking free also, because of continued stuff-ups and negligence by the government, in this case the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), who did not have a competent enough person to gather and professionally evaluate the information gathered on the Pike River Mine disaster.

    Whittall was a smart operator, first using the fact that he was going to be taken to court as a good enough excuse to not speak at the Royal Commission and to the media, or anyone else. Once his lawyers found that the prosecution lacked certain evidence, was having problems to get needed witness over from Australia, he was able to instruct them to consider such a “deal”.

    The families of the killed Pike River Mine disaster were not even involved. The Attorney General apparently was consulted, and in the end, the former CEO could walk free, while his insurance company, that was otherwise faced with paying for his legal defence, agreed to pay out over 3 million.

    The former National government that abolished the check inspectors and left the mine safety primarily to the mine companies has much to answer to this. The present National led government has much to answer for first defending the former, negligent, irresponsible policy on mining safety, until the disaster struck. They were ultimately also partly responsible for the whole failures and indeed criminal conduct by the mining company, as they allowed this to go unmonitored.

    Now the Minister Simon Bridges goes around talking about law changes to solve issues, making himself look good. This is so disgusting, it leaves me and others speechless.

    Yet we have similar things happen in other areas. Look at the medical profession, misadventure and the likes. There is a useless Health and Disability Commissioner, whose office last year got 1,619 formal complaints, of which only about 60 were formally “investigated”, and where 42 were found to represent accepted breaches. Out of those only 16 were referred to the Director of Proceedings, who will most likely only acted on few of those to be followed up.

    So if you as a patient suffer misconduct, malpractice, neglect and worse at the hands of a health or disability service provider or practitioner, you are mostly stuffed. They do stuff all to address issues, and most “offenders” only get a slap with a wet bus ticket.

    I do not want to get started on how ACC and WINZ clients get shafted these days, I could go on for weeks!

    Welcome to New Zealand justice 2013!

  4. Certainly , the Dark Siders should be hanging . I doubt they’ll ever feel shame . We Light Siders just feel helpless as yet another brick is put in our Wall .

    I know a few Dark Siders and despite me and my determination to drag them kicking and squealing into the Light , they stick to their distorted beliefs like mad , foaming at the mouth , Christian fundamentalists .

    Then I realized I was having issues with my other personality while cleaning my teeth . ( I have no idea why I just wrote that ??? )

    I saw a film many years ago . It was Italian and I wish I could remember the title . It was shot in the very best film noir they could muster and while it was dark and brooding and crammed with jabbering Italians , it was fabulous .

    It was a complex affair if I remember and had many sub plots leading off to here and there .

    One of those sub plots was about one of the boys of the family who got bullied and humiliated by the older neighbourhood tough guy . The younger boy was slapped and kicked and tormented . He was hounded and berated as he went to school and home again until one day the bully was nabbed by the police for some crime he’d committed and dragged off to do a lag in prison . ( I hope I have that right ? )
    The younger boy took advantage of not having to tolerate the humiliation of
    being subjected to the older guys tyranny thus set about to harden up in readiness for the older thugs release in a few years time .
    During the film and over time and as other plot lines developed , the younger man could seen slouching around with heavy weights tied to his feet to develop his legs muscles , he did weight training with massive pieces if industrial machinery and was always seen eating whole cooked chickens , dozens of eggs and thick steaks .
    He went from a skinny kid to a massive , bull of a guy with a thick neck and huge arms . He loomed like Godzilla in the tiny Italian flat while the rest of his family had to sidle around him because he took up so much room .
    Then the day came when the bully was released from prison .
    He promptly resumed his place as the neighbourhood thug , older now and even more nasty he began by using stand over tactics to extort money out of business owners and old people .
    The huge boy was walking by one day and there ! There he was ! The boy went over to the thug who was surrounded by his minions and glared down at him . His huge chest heaved with rage , his biceps flexed with menace as he ground his teeth . And just as the thug , now agog at this beast of a man whom he’d only just recognized , was about to speak , the huge boy gave the bully a massive shove and knocked him flying across the footpath .
    The bully stood up shocked and dazed remembering the boy and of all the beatings and bullying he’d administered to him . He stared as he walked over to the hulk of a kid and said while trying to contain his fright ‘ I remember you , you fucking coward . I remember you ? You’re that pasty kid I used to have fun with . You little prick and punched the huge kid in the face . Shock rattled across the kids face ! His massive frame withered and the kid became the little bullied boy once again … Fin .

    That’s us Kiwis . We’re big and tough on the field or in the bar or when we smack the missus or the kids but when it comes to this . To stand up against those scum we fizzle out .
    Offense is the best defense . Anger is an energy . Is simon bridges in hiding ? No . He is not . He boldly goes here and there on his perks , his six figure salary pushing out his suit pants . Money YOU give him to beat YOU up . To humiliate YOU .
    My genuine fear is that when that day comes , when we have all had enough . We will all over react and mayhem will ensue . People will die and the city streets will get down .

    Evil Nine . ‘ Crooked ‘ .
    http://youtu.be/U6dxYka2tRk

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