Banks John: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6283. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 On behalf of the ACT Party and the people of Epsom I want to express my profound sorrow to the families of the Pike River mine 29. Although it can never compensate for the loss of loved ones I hope that the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy’s report which could be best described as brave provides some closure to those seeking answers on what went terribly wrong on 19 November 2010 and on what led up to that fateful day. 
I have been an employer for 50 years and I can remember two occasions in the restaurant business vividly when I warned a dishwasher that unblocking an InSinkErator in a sink with his hands was going to lead to a disaster. On three or four occasions I told that dishwasher that he must not do it. On another occasion I told him that if I saw him putting his hands into it without unplugging it at the wall I would have to sack him. Sure enough about 3 months later I learnt that he had put his hands in to unblock the InSinkErator and lost most of the fingers on his hands. On another occasion with someone dealing with fat I said to the worker: “You cannot come to work in this kitchen handling big buckets of hot deep-frying fat wearing jandals. The floor is wet. You are going to have a disaster.” I was away from the business one day and I got a call to say that he came in in shorts and bare feet slipped the boiling fat went all over him and the rest is history. So for employers and employees these things can happen. 
These were just one or two occasions in a business that I was associated with. Employers have to be ever vigilant that employees can do things sometimes that are going to cause some danger. You can only do your best to try to help them out. I know that this is an institutional matter that we are talking about but on Saturday I drove down a street in my electorate and I saw a man in sandshoes and shorts on a tin roof washing his roof with a broomstick and a hose. I do not have to tell you how dangerous that is. We all do things in business and at home that are dangerous and we can be told until we are blue in the face that this is dangerous. 
Although it can never compensate for the loss of the loved ones the royal commission’s report about the responsibility of employers to employees and employees to their workmates can never be underestimated. Justice Panckhurst’s report makes harrowing reading; in essence everything that might have gone wrong did go wrong. Like trying to fix the InSinkErator while it is plugged in or trying to carry hot buckets of fat in a restaurant in bare feet the Pike River tragedy was waiting to happen. The geology and the geography were difficult the rock was shattered and the coal was deep. The company was undercapitalised there was a high turnover of management and the company directors relied heavily on the safety assurances of the company management which would have been under huge pressure to deliver to a company that was under huge pressure to deliver to its bankers. There was a high expectation and a high ratio of inexperienced miners to experienced ones. That is why in a kitchen that we would run we would often have an experienced person with an inexperienced person so accidents that can happen in a small workplace do not happen. But accidents that happen in a big workplace are multiple and in this case multiplied 29 times. 
The mining method was novel. The placement of the air extractors and equipment was unorthodox and not fire protected. Methane detectors were often ignored in the desire to keep the mine up and running and producing coal for the management so that the management could produce it to the board so that the board could produce the cash to the bank. The ACT Party supports the free market and entrepreneurship but we also support employing people and not exploiting them looking after people and valuing them teaching people and monitoring them and having a two-way relationship with them where dollars do not come before safety and security. The commission finds that the Health and Safety in Employment Act is largely fit for purpose. However it finds that the industry-specific regulations made under the Act are not and it suggests changes and more extensive reforms of the regulations. 
Finally can I say this: in relation to Pike River Coal the Department of Labour essentially believed that the mine was compliant with the regulations and that active assessment of regulatory requirements and compliance in safety was unnecessary. It is always necessary because workplace safety is always paramount and we have learnt a lot of very valuable lessons. I am very sorry for the 29 miners and their families at Pike River.