Ross Jami-Lee: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ross Jami-Lee: Urgent Debates — Pike River Mine Disaster—Release of Report Government Response and Ministerial Resignation 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6284. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 I think it is unfortunate that we are having this debate. It is unfortunate that we are having this debate because it is very unfortunate that 2 years ago a significant tragedy took place that claimed the lives of 29 individuals. I do not think there is a soul in New Zealand who could easily forget what happened on 19 November 2010. It was a time when I think just about every New Zealander was glued to the television hoping—hoping—that there was an opportunity that there was a possibility that the 29 individuals down there who ultimately lost their lives would come back safely. Sadly it was not the case. I think I would like to echo the comments made by a number of members in this House that we all have in the back of our minds thoughts of the families of those miners and for the individuals who lost their lives. 
The Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy has done a lot of work on this issue. It has done a lot of work on the circumstances finding out the facts and looking at the situation that led to the tragedy on 19 November. The royal commission was established roughly 10 days after the tragedy took place. It has finally brought its report back to the Government and now it is out in the public domain. This report I believe is crucial in helping us to identify what went wrong. It is very easy to throw around blame. It is very easy to try to point fingers after the fact. But the point of it all is that now we have to look forward. We have to look at how we can prevent future tragedies like this happening. We have to look to how we can improve health and safety situations for New Zealanders so that tragedies like this do not occur in the future. The royal commission has made 16 recommendations. The Government has broadly accepted all of them with some tweaks that still need to be looked at on how those recommendations are implemented. But the Government broadly accepts those recommendations because the Government believes that it is important that we work very hard as a Parliament and as a Government on how we can keep New Zealanders safe. 
I think it is worthwhile pointing out that the work that is going to take place on working on health and safety for New Zealanders does not start today; it started quite some time ago. In the 2 years since the Pike River tragedy a large amount of work has been done to beef up the regulatory regime for workplace health and safety. All underground coalmines in New Zealand have been safety checked and audited by independent experts from the Australian mining industry. We have also funded $1.5 million for a new high hazards unit which has a team solely focused on mining. We have boosted funding for health and safety by approximately $37 million and an independent task force has been set up to review the health and safety system in this country. That task force will be reporting back in approximately April next year. The Department of Labour had some failings identified. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the new Government department has accepted that the department should have done better. The Minister has also accepted responsibility and has done what I believe is—and many members have been calling—the honourable thing and that should be highlighted as well. 
The report reinforces the need for change in the regulation of mines in general and particularly with regard to the issues that arose in this case. We need to work hard to ensure that that is done quickly because at the end of the day New Zealand’s safety the safety of mines and the safety of the people who work in mines in New Zealand is what needs to be kept in mind. We have heard a little bit throughout the debate about the pointing of fingers and a little bit about who is to blame and where we should be apportioning blame. That is quite easy to do in hindsight but I just want to re-emphasise the point that the best thing that will come out of this report is future work on health and safety. Recommendations will be implemented from this royal commission. 
It is not a tragedy we ever want to see repeated in this country—29 men suffered the ultimate sacrifice and we do not ever want to have to be standing in this House ever again 2 years after an event speaking about what is going to be done to help ensure it does not happen again. We do not want it to happen again. We want to ensure that robust systems are put in place big changes are put in place so that a Pike River never happens again. I thank the royal commission for the work it has done and I look forward to the work that is going to be done going forward to implement its recommendations to make workplace health and safety better for all New Zealanders.