Pike River: Govt never ruled out stopping at drift, documents show
There’s new pressure on the minister in charge of Pike River to consider going further into the mine – with documents revealing the Government promised to that in 2017.
Last week, Minister Andrew Little told Newshub Nation he was ruling out the idea of investigating beyond the drift. However, the Cabinet paper committed to considering it, and some families are saying Little has gone back on his word.
The recovery of the 2.3km drift is almost complete, however further evidence and the bodies of the 29 men remain out of reach.
It is unacceptable that Labour has refused post blank to go beyond the drift at Pike River.
Labour are twisting words so that their previous promises don’t look so shabby.
They haven’t even costed what going beyond the roof fall would actually end up costing us.
So Labour are playing semantics about what they promised, they haven’t bothered costing it and are giving up just when we could have a solution.
So in short, Labour are doing to Pike River what they have already done to the Housing Crisis – make empty promises, spend huge amounts of money trying to fix a neoliberal unregulated environment and giving up before there’s a solution.
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50 million spent just to get to the drift, silly money for a big fat zero outcome for what reason?….Labour campaigned on it and to keep the miners familes happy.
Should just have offered the 29 families $1,000,000 each (which is already be on top of the hundreds of thousands already received) and saved the taxpayer $21million. NOT all of the 29 familes wanted this to drag on so long, just the vocal ones who saw an ‘opportunity’. Perhaps now the political circus that Pike River has become will finally have the big top taken down and the clown MPs move onto another location.
The Law Works Special – The Upper Big Branch Coal Mine Investigation
https://youtu.be/GSE8hucqEz8?t=11
Even the Americans with their genocide and their ‘land of the free market’ do better than us with their/ our corrupt little skullduggerous paid – for corrupt officials. They spare no measures when it comes to those responsible. As for us?… we make grubby little deals with high paid officials and let those guilty of manslaughter go scot free. All courtesy of our corrupt political and legal system.
This deserves a few songs and a reminder of how grubby our society really is.
Native American Traditional Cree Music
https://youtu.be/fcLS_oO1kro?t=4
And just to ram the point home,… lets have a read about Wounded Knee, shall we? Same thing, govt covering up, officials ducking for cover, contempt for those of so called ‘ lesser standing’ because they weren’t the ‘manifest destiny’ elite.
Similar to the arrogance displayed to the 29 Pike River victims,… ”they were just a bunch of workers anyway and we can get around this by paying some off, making deals with our justice system and giving the excuse it costs too much to pursue”…
Wounded Knee Massacre
https://youtu.be/KdmnYStj7lY?t=67
Wounded Knee Massacre – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Wounded_Knee_Mass…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
What would happen if 29 MP’s all died simultaneously because they pushed their pens too hard, eh?
Probably have an ongoing inquiry , heads would roll and those accountable would be slammed in prison. Not so if your just ‘ a worker’ in this country, …..
Eh.
Pike River families deserved more, yes they certainly did.
Starting with how the hell did such a dangerous mine be allowed to operate.
Why the families received zero compensation.
“Prime Minister John Key says families of Pike River victims will have to take the Government to court in order to win compensation from the Crown.
This week Key confirmed that Attorney General Chris Finlayson had told Cabinet that it saw no legal recourse for the Crown to be liable for compensation which the courts ordered Pike River Coal to pay.
Pike River Coal is in receivership, and New Zealand Oil & Gas, the company’s founder and cornerstone shareholder, voted not to pay the compensation.
In Parliament yesterday Key said the Government believed there was no course of action which would find the Crown liable, and that volunteering to pay could create a dangerous precedent.
”Obviously, the legal representatives of the family are free to test that case in court. But the Government is also a guardian of taxpayers’ money, and it would need to be very careful about any precedent that it might set,” Key said during Question Time.
”There are plenty of New Zealand companies that, for instance, go broke and actually do not end up paying redundancy payments that are owing to those workers. So that situation is another situation that the Government would have to avoid.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/9399690/PM-avoiding-Pike-River-payout
We need to help the families but not lose sight that for whatever reason, NZ continues to allow the worst corporate malpractice to get away with it (Pike River, CTV building) with zero compensation, while the little guy gets the book thrown at them for accidents that are often out of their control.
The worst is getting caught in immigration scams and throwing the victims in jail and you reckon I’m woke??? Settle down dick.
It is not a scam if people know they are working illegally, pay thousands of $$ to do it, and then feel that the NZ taxpayers owes them a passport, house, health care, social welfare, services so they can keep continuing onwards! Nope, as mentioned it is not uncommon for many nationalities to work for cash illegally in another’s country, and then when caught – it is normal to be deported! Break another countries rules and you are deported! Also much less damage done to a country that has illegal cash workers from a little country of 3 million (now we are 5 million with so many ‘new residents’ other countries like OZ are cutting down on their freebies to Kiwis) to a country of 60 million (UK), vs 2 countries like India and China with 2.5 billion people coming to work illegally in NZ a country of 5 million. Not sustainable!
It is a scam. Immigration New Zealand don’t charge tens of thousands for a work visa. Yet they’ve know about these scams for years and your solution is to go in on a poor immigrant who can’t speak English.
NZ can’t make billions of people in India and China be upgraded to learn English and recognise scams. They need to stop allowing them to get into NZ in the first place, then the scams can not continue. It’s easy to solve.
I think that’s cool. Maybe I spammed to much ego. So, we need to stomp Covid19.
‘some families are saying Little has gone back on his word.’
Ha! As if Andrew Little’s word means anything! It has all the value of a piece of used toilet paper, I’m afraid. I saw that long before he managed to sneak into parliament and get his snout in the public feeding trough.
That said, the antics of the LINO government do keep consultants and speculators in business, and maintain the pretence they know what they are doing as they make everything that matters worse.
Not too long to go now before all the lies ad deceits get exposed (including those of National).
If there were not 170000 children living in poverty hospitals and schools were not in desperate need of repairs and we were not in a financial free fall I would agree that we throw more money at trying to find a cause for this disaster.
A lot of attention has been focused on this work place accident but it needs to be remembered 100s die each year in the workplace. It is always sad but many families do not get the help and financial assistance this group has got.
Maybe because the atrocity of 29 men all dying simultaneously is such an obscenity it serves to highlight how shitty conditions are in this country, eh?
And our legal system that lets criminals go scot free if the price is right.
So maybe those ”100’s” who die needlessly each year in the workplace for greater profits might be highlighted and the scum bastard employers who don’t take responsibility, who never get the book thrown at them (like they would a worker) should receive equally harsh treatment in the eyes of the law instead of having their case whitewashed by some limp and flaccid inquiry.
Last Samurai – 73 Winchester
https://youtu.be/8SYOAa5sGfY?t=16
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