O'Rourke Denis: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6280. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 To say that the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy is sobering is an understatement. This was the worst mining disaster in 96 years 29 lives were lost and it should not have happened in this day and age. It was a tragedy that should not have happened and that could have been prevented. So the question that I ask and the question that most New Zealanders will be asking today is where the responsibility lies. The royal commission found that the Department of Labour did not have the focus capacity or strategies to ensure Pike River Coal was meeting its responsibilities under health and safety law. Serious problems with the mine’s ventilation and drainage systems were identified and yet nothing was done. Permits were given without any real scrutiny of health and safety requirements. 
The underlying reason for this shocking state of affairs which I am sad to say reveals New Zealand as a Third World State as far as mine safety goes is light-handed regulation and inadequate resources for the department which lacked the necessary means to ensure safety at this mine and presumably at others. Every New Zealander should feel ashamed of Government negligence on mine safety—because it is first and foremost a Government issue and it is secondly a company issue. I think the Prime Minister was completely wrong when he said today that it was firstly a matter for the company itself. It is not. It is firstly a matter for the Government to ensure a robust safety culture in this country. It just shows I believe more bad leadership by this Prime Minister more “spray and walk away” and more light-handed stuff which leads to this sort of result. 
When Pike River Coal management was advised that a ventilation shaft with a 110-metre ladder was unsuitable as a secondary emergency exit no checks were in place to ensure that the necessary action would be taken. The commission noted that during the inquiry when Department of Labour inspectors were shown examples of safety records they were visibly dismayed by what they were seeing. If only they had been dismayed 2 years ago. It is unforgivable and totally unacceptable that this could ever have been allowed to occur in this country. 
The royal commission’s findings are clear and unequivocal: this has been a systematic failure by Government—I repeat by Government—to ensure workplace safety in New Zealand. The responsibility for what happened at Pike River does not simply rest with field inspectors who acted within legal guidelines and standards set in place by regulators. The responsibility ultimately rests with the Government itself; it rests with the Department of Labour; it rests with the Minister of Labour who to her credit has resigned; it rests with Cabinet; and it certainly rests with the Prime Minister who was so visible immediately after the events of Pike River. To Chris Finlayson I would say simply this: too little too late. The right course of action was for the Minister to resign and New Zealand First praises Mrs Wilkinson for that decision. But she is the fall guy for an inept Government now trying to squirm out of its responsibilities. 
This Government I believe stands indicted in the court of public opinion for what is nothing less than its negligence over a lack of a robust safety culture in this country. That has occurred since 1992 and every Government since then also stands indicted. New Zealand First calls upon the Prime Minister to acknowledge his own culpability and that indeed of the National Government as a whole. Since the 1990s there has been a recurring theme of removing sound regulation for the sake of increased efficiency—so-called—and increased profits. Policy makers have demonstrated an appalling lack of regard for human life and regulatory responsibility for the maintenance of safe standards has been transferred from Government departments to businesses themselves. It went far too far. It was really an abdication of responsibility and it demonstrably did not work. 
 Now we have seen the worst possible results of this tried and failed Government policy. Now is the time for the Government to admit its failure not just to accept the 16 recommendations that Chris Finlayson talked about. That is the very least we can expect. We need much more than that. We need also for the Government to give the country an unequivocal assurance that a new much tougher regulatory regime will be introduced. This must include at the very least a new offence of corporate manslaughter to bring home to those who run companies that deal in industries that are difficult and dangerous and perhaps require much more regulation that they must also take responsibility for themselves. The Government must also give the country a similar assurance that the responsible department will get the expert staff and the resources it needs too to ensure the rebuilding of a safety culture in New Zealand business—mining in particular—that will drag New Zealand back out of the Third World status we have fallen into. 
I would like to conclude by saying again that New Zealand First deeply regrets what happened at Pike River offers again its sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives and will do all New Zealand First can to assist this House this Parliament and the country to bring back a level of safety for industries such as mining where safety is so important and to bring back a regime that we can all rely upon to ensure that disasters of this kind never happen again.