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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has offered himself to be the first to re-enter the Pike River mine where 29 miners perished in 2010.
If he goes in alone, that will only make people want it to cave in again?
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@taniwharugby Yes.
Anyone know what happens when methane and alcohol fumes mix?
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@jegga said in Pike river:
Did Key guarantee it or say they would do everything possible?
It turns out that on 25 Nov 2010 he said that he understood the anger that some families had shown about the decision not to enter the mine. But he said the reason was clear, that it was unsafe to enter the mine, and he was entirely confident that the operation had been run properly. The incident had already claimed 29 lives, and no more lives should be lost, he said. However, recovery of the miners' bodies would remain "an absolute priority" as an important part of giving closure to their families.
On 6 Dec 2012 following the Royal Commission, in terms of body recovery, he said exploring the main tunnel (drift) was a realistic goal.
“If a safe, technically feasibly and financially credible plan for exploration of the drift can be developed the Government would be willing to contribute funds, provided the plan has been prepared by, or has the support of Solid Energy, and provided it satisfies the requirements of the High Hazards Unit.”
On 13 Dec 2012 he followed up by committing up to $10m to help fund efforts to reenter the mine, but again "any proposed re-entry plan had to be safe and credible plus needed approval from mining officials." He also said ''I told them absolutely in plain English that all of the advice I've ever had in my office has always been that it will not be possible to get in to the mine's workings itself.''
Human nature being what it is the families seem to have forgotten the caveats he put around re-entry. Very sad, but they don't seem to understand that governments can't "order" civilians to put themselves in harms way, and that even allowing someone to go in voluntarily is probably fraught with legal problems. Given that there are existing official recommendations not to enter the government can't just "un-know" about them. If something goes wrong it doesn't matter if there are reports saying it's probably safe because by then everyone will be using their 20/20 hindsight to tell the government that since their own reports said it was dangerous they should have known it would go wrong.
The government can't win on this. But sticking to their guns means angry families and grandstanding Opposition parties, whereas giving in could mean additional angry families, grandstanding Opposition parties and some more dead people, I reckon they're right to stick to their guns.
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@dogmeat said in Pike river:
There's any number of political elements starting with John Key guaranteeing that the government would get the bodies out.
Clearly safety has to be the paramount concern, but you don't have to be a "leftard" to have sympathy for the grieving families who just want to have closure.
Those families have assembled a number of overseas mining experts who say that the mine can be re-entered to remove the bodies without endangering lives.
Now I'm no mining expert but it seems to come down to whose experts you believe.
The families clearly think that Solid Energy is hiding behind the safety argument because they're bankrupt and that the government are hiding behind the sorry it's nothing to do with us - it's for Solid Energy to decide - which leads back to Key's original broken promise.
Who the hell knows the reality? but it's certainly not as simple as lazily blaming the leftards
Your first sentence is typical of the narrative and disinformation that has built up about this. At no point did Key guarantee that the govt would get the bodies out. Just didnt happen, yet the narrative grew as people spread it.
Key did not break any promise.
You can easily have closure without needing a body, happens all the time. You have to have sympathy with the families, but because they lost loved ones, not because they want to get buried bodies out to rebury them, I dont think it is worth the risk no matter how small to retrieve the bodies.Edit- I should have read the rest of the posts which have already debunked dogmeats recollection. It is still illustrative of easily a false narrative gains traction though.
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David Farrar just tweeted
"Solid Energy Directors face up to five years imprisonment and/or $600,000 fines if someone got harmed in Pike, if opened against advice"
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback pfft, they probably earn that in a week, just open it, let people in...it is for a good cause, it doesnt matter if more people die.
Still saying in the Beehive that Key promised to get them out...
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback I should have put quote marks around the guaranteeing.
I do hope those posters expounding on how easy it is to have closure never have to face a situation like this.
My experience with sudden death is fortunately slim but I've talked to enough people to know there is no hard and fast rules.
Some people draw consolation from going to a grave site and genuinely feel connected to their lost one in doing so.
I've been to my mothers grave about 4 times in 13 years and feel no need to go at all. Different strokes
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@dogmeat said in Pike river:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback I should have put quote marks around the guaranteeing.
I do hope those posters expounding on how easy it is to have closure never have to face a situation like this.
My experience with sudden death is fortunately slim but I've talked to enough people to know there is no hard and fast rules.
Some people draw consolation from going to a grave site and genuinely feel connected to their lost one in doing so.
I've been to my mothers grave about 4 times in 13 years and feel no need to go at all. Different strokes
No, you just should not have followed a false narrative so easily. Your entire first post was built on an assumption that Key had said something he had not.
Then there is the money side of it, where do you draw the line at the cost? 1 million? 10 million? 100 million?
Taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and ultimately I would rather they spent the money on keeping people alive than retrieving bodies. There has to be a limit surely? -
@taniwharugby said in Pike river:
Still saying in the Beehive that Key promised to get them out...
And sadly as this thread shows people are ready to lap that stuff up.
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I've done minimal research on this, but does anybody know if there is a reason why they can't send robots down there to take a look and see whats happening? Taking a look at maps, it looks like it's around 2km distance from entrance to estimates of where the bodies are - this should be plenty of radio signal shouldn't it?
I should add, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by getting whats left of the bodies out now. They will probably be nothing but skeletons anymore.
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@MajorRage said in Pike river:
I've done minimal research on this, but does anybody know if there is a reason why they can't send robots down there to take a look and see whats happening? Taking a look at maps, it looks like it's around 2km distance from entrance to estimates of where the bodies are - this should be plenty of radio signal shouldn't it?
I should add, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by getting whats left of the bodies out now. They will probably be nothing but skeletons anymore.
I think the electrics of a robot have a good chance of setting off an explosion?
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@MajorRage if they weren't vaporised in the blast .
They already tried robots, it didn't end well.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10838786 -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback Possibly, although electronics technology should be sufficient to avoid this - as long as they don't use a Samsung note 7.
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Pike river:
@taniwharugby said in Pike river:
Still saying in the Beehive that Key promised to get them out...
And sadly as this thread shows people are ready to lap that stuff up.
The narrative this year has been the right are all about " post truth" etc and yet with this, the tppa and the flag we've seen some outrageous lies being put forward from the left..
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@dogmeat said in Pike river:
@booboo I'm reluctant to say what would bring closure - not fortunately having been put into that situation.
Yeah sorry. Overstating that it "won't" bring closure. Perhaps "won't nessarily" would have been better.
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again, having not been in thier position, it may seem harsh or insensitive (not my intention) but for me, the way I see closure, is for the families of those on MH370, who want to know what happened, where it happened, how they died (if in fact they did
...) whereas to me, in this instance, they know what happened, they know where they are, that they died, but they want the bodies removed, although I do wonder if it might add to the grief if they somehow find out some survived for sometime after as well.Assuming there have been, as suspected gases there the whole time, what effect will this have had on the bodies in terms of decomposition or will they have been preserved?
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Pike river:
@dogmeat said in Pike river:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback I should have put quote marks around the guaranteeing.
I do hope those posters expounding on how easy it is to have closure never have to face a situation like this.
My experience with sudden death is fortunately slim but I've talked to enough people to know there is no hard and fast rules.
Some people draw consolation from going to a grave site and genuinely feel connected to their lost one in doing so.
I've been to my mothers grave about 4 times in 13 years and feel no need to go at all. Different strokes
No, you just should not have followed a false narrative so easily. Your entire first post was built on an assumption that Key had said something he had not.
Then there is the money side of it, where do you draw the line at the cost? 1 million? 10 million? 100 million?
Taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and ultimately I would rather they spent the money on keeping people alive than retrieving bodies. There has to be a limit surely?My first post was actually about the intellectual laziness and prejudice of blaming everything on the "leftards " when the whole topic is much more nuanced than that.
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It is also simplistic to look at the semantics of government statements down the track when they were made at times of high emotion and would have been taken as an offer of support at the time. The families would certainly set the bar of 'everything possible' much higher than the reality and also set their own expectations on that.
Isn't this exactly what they are arguing though? They believe 'everything possible' isn't being done because they have experts telling them so. Other experts disagree with their experts so hence the debates.
I also think we don't fully understand the 'culture' around these mining communities. I would guess that there is a creed of 'not leaving anyone behind' that would have had a good sensible reason for existence many years ago when miners would have been looking out for each others safety underground and the dependence on each other was very high. A bit like the US Marines that never leave anyone behind they can potentially save despite full knowledge that in the cold light of day the best course of action would be to do so. -
@dogmeat said in Pike river:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Pike river:
@dogmeat said in Pike river:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback I should have put quote marks around the guaranteeing.
I do hope those posters expounding on how easy it is to have closure never have to face a situation like this.
My experience with sudden death is fortunately slim but I've talked to enough people to know there is no hard and fast rules.
Some people draw consolation from going to a grave site and genuinely feel connected to their lost one in doing so.
I've been to my mothers grave about 4 times in 13 years and feel no need to go at all. Different strokes
No, you just should not have followed a false narrative so easily. Your entire first post was built on an assumption that Key had said something he had not.
Then there is the money side of it, where do you draw the line at the cost? 1 million? 10 million? 100 million?
Taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and ultimately I would rather they spent the money on keeping people alive than retrieving bodies. There has to be a limit surely?My first post was actually about the intellectual laziness and prejudice of blaming everything on the "leftards " when the whole topic is much more nuanced than that.
Would it be intellectually lazy to suggest anyone blamed "everything " on the left? No one has actually done that.
There's obviously a fair bit more to this than just politics but when one side thinks they can use this as a means of giving the govt a black eye and is spreading misinformation that's something that's worthy of discussion.
I'd be interested in knowing who paid for the report that was given to parliament today and what sort of pressure they put on Allied concrete to convince them not to pour concrete last week.
Pike river
