Has the Govt acted appropriately in the wake of Pike River?

8:46 AM Monday Nov 5, 2012

Digital image / P.K. Stowers

Prime Minister John Key is squarely blaming the Pike River Coal Company for the disaster that killed 29 West Coast workers two years ago.

But he has accepted some responsibility by the Government regulator of health and safety, formerly the Department of Labour, saying it deluded itself it was doing things properly.

"In the end, it's as simple as this," Mr Key said at his post-Cabinet press conference after the release of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disaster.

"The company completely and utterly failed to protect their workers. And as a result of that, they were put in undue risk and an explosion took place that killed people."

Has the Govt acted appropriately in the wake of the Pike River disaster? Here is the latest selection of Your Views:

Osiris (New Zealand) | 09:26AM Monday, 05 Nov 2012

No. From the outset, the handling of the disaster has been a model of incompetence and backside covering. Government has merely extended this.

From the start, the Police should have not been involved directing operations - what experience do they have of mining - unless it's data mining Dotcom's computer systems?

Inexperience on the part of the top cop delayed active rescue until it was too late - that much is clear. Like the CTV building, we may never know how many if any could have been rescued in the "Golden Hour" but we do know that the minute the police got on the job, they were all doomed.

Lloyd (Takaka) | 09:26AM Monday, 05 Nov 2012

Sure: they've seized on it as an excuse to steer New Zealand towards cheap open-cast mining, wrecking the environment to make money. New Zealanders love cheap and money, and demonstrably couldn't care less about the environment, so that must mean the government they voted for has acted appropriately. Never mind bereaved, grief-stricken families and compromised safety standards, as always in this country it's the money that matters.

Jason () | 09:26AM Monday, 05 Nov 2012

Enough is enough isn't it. The debate about going in or not has been dragging on for too long. Now we have experts here from overseas to tell uis what to do. We have already been advised it's too dangerous from a multitude of groups and experts, but the families push and push at tax payer expense no doubt.

It is sad, but lets all be honest and agree we can't go in there to recover the bodies. and the best thing to do now is for the families to deal with their grief and move on as best they can.

The Government has handled this as well as could be expected.