Patrick Gower enters deadly Pike River mine
Eight years after the Pike River mine disaster, the families of the 29 men lost are still waiting to find out exactly what happened.Newshub national correspondent Patrick Gower has now become the first journalist to set foot inside the mine’s drift.
What Winston, the Greens and Andrew Little all understand and appreciate about the Pike River Mine is how utterly responsible we all are as a civil society for the deaths there.
It wasn’t just the mass loss of life. It wasn’t just the whitewash investigation. It wasn’t just the bewildering lack of accountability. It was us, as a country that allowed Pike River to occur.
We as a country did not demand from our Government stringent enough work and safety regulations and those flawed rules were simply missing at Pike River.
We are a modern liberal democracy. Worker rights and the security in knowing your loved ones will return from work at the end of the day are demanded and expected in the modern age. That we as a nation have allowed anti-union political parties to rob us of that security is our fault.We owe those families a proper investigation and a real attempt to return their loved ones just as much as we are responsible for never allowing this to occur ever again.
NZ First realises that. Labour appreciate it and the Greens get it.
National have done everything to shut this down and protect those who killed.
Police will treat this as a crime scene, we owe these men a home coming.
Good article martyn,
National dont do shame it is not in their DNO remember they called the wonderful wesr coasters “feral”————-
Good for Winston and Andrew getting to the bottom of this deliberately hidden crime of so many souls lives lost.
Because the population of the west coast is only about 150000 the loss of so many was a disasrioius blow to many folks on the ease coast we must honour them for their loss.
From a NI east coaster.
+100 CLEANGREEN
Key lied and broke his promises.
Lest we forget!
For me, and for many, Ardern’s govt addressing the terrible tragedy at Pike River mine is likely to always be its most significant achievement.
Nothing can compensate for lives lost. Nothing can compensate for the lack of value placed upon those men down in the bowels of the earth while they were alive, and after they were dead.
The previous govt appeared to understand value only in terms of money, but New Zealand’s leadership has now made a statement defining our values in terms of honourable behaviour, integrity, and human decency, rather than with a warped self-protectiveness.
Whatever the outcome at Pike River, I am proud that the people in power are trying to do the right thing.
This is just like Erebus but with less casualties.
I almost spewed when i saw Gower pretending to be concerned when he was covering this story.
His behaviour and allegiance to Key and his corrupt government was one of the reasons that this disaster was never investigated properly and was covered up.
How Monk and the others indulged him with this coverage is unbelievable.
I would have refused to talk to him and Media Works should be ashamed of themselves for treating this as a sick joke.
Erebus also occurred under the watch of National, and it took five months for the Muldoon govt to announce a Commission of Inquiry. By that stage they were virtually forced into it by the direct action of a committee of NZ lawyers frustrated at being denied access to information, the interests of the US plane manufacturers, and because a significant number of foreign nationals, in particular Japanese, had been killed on Erebus by Air NZ.
None such powerful voices were raised in the interests of the Pike River men and their bereaved families.
In stark contrast, Simon Bridges called for a Judicial Inquiry a day or two after his political spend-up was leaked to the media.
Bridge’s indignation on behalf of himself was not matched by any similar level of action from the National Party about the men killed at Pike River, or by any similar pious concern to establish the truth.
‘…is how utterly responsible we all are as a civil society for the deaths there.’
Pretty much sums it up.
Justice for the men who lost their lives, and their families, needs to be done before an entire country can rest.
If anything comes of this we need to make sure something like this never happens again. I hope they find what they want and then our men who went to work that day can truly rest in peace.
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