O'Connor Damien: Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4325. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I move That the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. Like so many members’ bills this one has been some time in gestation. It was a bill I introduced after the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy which had recommended that an “effective regulatory framework for underground coal mining should be established urgently.” The royal commission identified through its hearings the fact that Queensland and New South Wales have arguably the best practice in this area. Effectively what I did was take those Queensland mine regulations and what this bill will do is implement them immediately into New Zealand to protect the lives of miners working underground.I am sure that we will hear from the Government the excuse that much has happened in that time and I acknowledge that and that there is no need for this bill. If I can take us back through a pathway in 1994 I was given a lecture on underground mining by Bill Brazil who was a former mines inspector. He told me that the change in the legislation in 1992 by the National Government would be rued by this country and that we would be shamed by the consequences of deregulation of mining regulations that had been established through over a century of experience. How right he was.It took some time. In fact it was in the early 2000s before we started to see some major faults in the practice of underground mining. The theory had been that the Occupational Safety and Health Service would deal with the safety and the challenges and the risks of underground mining and that in fact a code of practice would be established and would be passed and would protect miners. That code of practice was never ever properly implemented and indeed the question is whether it has been implemented today—but I will come back to that issue. The inevitable catastrophe and loss of life because of an unregulated mining environment cost the lives of 29 men at Pike River and some others before. In fact I wrote a letter to the Minister of Labour just some months before Pike River raising issues that had been brought to my attention about lax practices in underground mining but I was given by the Minister—who had got it from her officials no doubt—a reassurance that all was well.This bill is my best attempt to try to protect the lives of underground miners. It was the best thing I could do because we had let our experience and that of international miners drift into the naivety of deregulation and market forces to protect the miners at work. This bill takes Queensland regulations which are not perfect—in fact of Pike River some have said that Australians designed the mine Australians ran the mine and Australians were in part a big major cause of its disaster—but Queensland regulations not implemented in New Zealand would have protected those men.The Government did move forward and pass legislation. In fact the original bill it brought in was split into three parts. One was to set up WorkSafe which has happened. The second was of course to ensure that Mines Rescue had the right authority to do its job properly. And the third was the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act “Pike River” having been dropped from the title. That was passed in 2013 and a key component in amended section 20A of the Health and Safety in Employment Act is subsection (1) which states: “A code of practice an amendment to a code of practice or a revocation of a code of practice has no force or effect until it has been approved by the Minister.” I rang today to see whether that code of practice has been implemented and no one could give me reassurance that it has.We have had the establishment of a High Hazards Unit. We have had progress. In fact we have had mines shut down until we could be sure that a safer regime was being carried out. Although people point the finger at Pike River the reality is that Solid Energy the Government’s own miner had such lax practices that for 6 months its mine was closed down post Pike River. Not one tonne of coal came out because it too was overseeing a dangerous mining situation. We cannot take anything for granted.What I ask of the Government is that it supports this legislation going to the select committee. It may say it has done all it can. What I say is that I want to check and this Parliament must check that the legislation is being implemented as intended that the codes of practice as identified have been implemented and are up to standard and that everything we can possibly do to make underground mining safe has been done. So I ask of the Government: can it support this bill and send it to the select committee where a group of MPs from all parties can come along and we can hear submissions from people who are responsible in the mining area to give us that reassurance?We need to know that the High Hazards Unit set up by the Government has the proper resourcing to do the job. The reality and one of the contributing factors to the Pike River mine disaster was that the Department of Labour was under-resourced. We need an assurance that Mines Rescue through the passage of this legislation has the right authority to act in the best way should we ever have to face such a terrible situation again.The legislation passed by the Government oversees safety in quarries. This year within a 1-month period we had two deaths in quarries in this country. That says to us that we still do not have things right. We need to know that the people in positions of authority and the people with responsibility have not only the qualifications but the experience to oversee proper and safe workplace practices.There are unresolved issues. Twenty-nine men still lie in the bowels of the Pike River mine. Their families have been asked to move—some say to move on. I would never ask them to move on. If you look through history if you look at all cultures one of the things we are most committed to most passionate about is trying to identify our loved ones whenever they are lost to us in any way. That is the driver for those 29 families and I would never ask them to move on. No one has been held to account. Last week in the High Court two family members were asking the court to review the decision by the Government agency that it would not proceed with the prosecution against the mine manager. Indeed the royal commission report and all the reports identify clear faults in decision making at that mine. It is not for me to judge but it is for me to say that those families have a right to ask the questions in a court of law. Mr Dave Feickert a staunch advocate for mine safety made a submission to the royal commission. The family of Mr Feickert who unfortunately has now passed away wants his submission to be made public. That has been blocked.Those are but three unresolved issues that I think need to be resolved. I ask the Government to support this bill going to the select committee to allow Parliament to review the progress or otherwise that it has made to question whether there is still a need for more improvement in the area of mine safety and work safety in this country and to ensure that everything that we can do as parliamentarians to prevent another mine disaster in this country has been done. We do not want one unnecessary death in mining or in quarrying or indeed in any workplace in New Zealand. We should not rest until we are assured that through legislation through the oversight of regulation and through our commitment to the parliamentary process we have done everything we can to ensure that men and women when they go to work can return home to their loved ones and to their families. This is what the families want most from that terrible disaster: to ensure that others do not have to suffer as they still suffer. I ask the Government to support this legislation going through to the select committee so that we can review the progress or otherwise that we have made in this House since the Pike River mine disaster.