Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill

We now move to Part 3, and this is debate on clauses 40 to 56 and schedule 4.

Part 3 of the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill covers the new role, and I think the more clearly defined role, of the Mines Rescue Trust, which has for a long time played a very important role in the mining industry. It has provided the training and the ready response force, if you like, for mines and mine disasters, or mine incidents, around the country. It is a very dedicated team. There is a core staff of only a handful of people. Working miners are taken off the job and provided with comprehensive training, and they are available to be deployed to mine incidents, whether on the West Coast or in the Waikato or in other places where there is mining going on.

One of the things that came out of the Pike River disaster—and I certainly know this from when I was down there at the time with my union hat on—was that there was in the initial stages great concern about who was controlling the Pike River incident and whether or not the expertise of the Mines Rescue Trust was being properly deployed. This is no criticism, because we can make observations and judgment in hindsight, but the reality is that in the early days as that tragedy unfolded, the police reaction to the Mines Rescue Trust was that they thought it was some sort of little society, like some little sort of sports group or something that just happened to rock on up with these well-equipped, well-trained mining folk ready to go into the mine. The trust was given, frankly, short shrift. This was commented on by the royal commission, which said that the Mines Rescue outfit must be given a proper statutory definition—even though it had its own Act beforehand, it must be given a proper statutory definition, including of its duties and powers—and this bill now goes some way towards doing that.

The Minister of Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper 374 provides some extra provision about what happens with an incident. It provides for the appointment of an incident controller and it provides for WorkSafe New Zealand to establish an emergency protocol. All of this is good stuff, but I want to draw the Committee’s attention to something that I think is a problem in it. It was a problem that was addressed specifically by the royal commission—I know that it was the subject of submissions by various parties to it—and it is about the decision making during the course of the incident.

There was a very great sense of frustration during the first week or 10 days of the Pike River event when those people from the various emergency services and the Mines Rescue Trust gathered at the mine site to make decisions but were prevented from doing so because the police at least, and possibly even the Fire Service, insisted on sending decisions back to Wellington to be made, rather than making them at the site. The Department of Labour was the other one, too, or what was known then as the Department of Labour. It got heavily involved in the decisions, but that slowed things down.

My concern is that the proposed clause 54B on Supplementary Order Paper 374 provides in subclause (4) of that new clause for the incident controller to “consult other relevant persons or agencies, including the persons and agencies described” earlier in the clause, and that includes the Fire Service, the police, and anybody else. I draw the Committee’s attention to the comment made by the royal commission in its report about the decision making at the time. It talked on page 350 of volume 2 of the report about planning activities that must include risk assessment, but it went on to say this: “Reviews of risk assessments should not go through several layers of bureaucracy, as occurred at Pike River.” What was happening during the course of the Pike River incident was that every time people thought they should do something, or a particular proposal was put forward about a course of action that would be taken, there was then a risk assessment that had to be carried out on it. It was those risk assessments and the decisions that were being taken that were sent off to Wellington, to the Police National Headquarters and the head office of the Department of Labour. That slowed things right down.

So on that basis I am putting forward an amendment that adds a proviso to subclause (4) of the proposed new clause 54B. It allows the incident controller to consult—as they should do, and, indeed, that did happen at Pike River—but adds “providing that such consultation does not impede the incident controller in making decisions in a timely and efficient way”. What is important, of course, as an incident like this unfolds is that decisions do have to get taken, and we do not want the obligation to consult the other parties, most of which will themselves have personnel at the incident, to be sort of ankle-tapped by the fact that they are referring to their various head offices and taking risk assessments. I think that in one case, one of the agencies involved was taking legal advice as this was all unfolding, so there was a law office involved and giving advice, as well. All of that slowed things down.

I know from talking to some of the Australian experts who were giving advice from Australia in the early stages and who then came over to do what they call gagging the mine—filling it up with gas to put out the fire—that a lot of those folks were saying how difficult it was to get some very important decisions taken because everything seemed to be referred off to other places and parts of the country. So I say that I hope the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Labour, takes that on board and, if necessary, talks to the officials to make sure that in enacting this provision we do not impede future incident controllers in the way that those in charge of the Pike River incident clearly were impeded from taking decisions in a more timely and effective manner.

We know that there was this model of crisis incident management that the emergency services at Pike River were following. It was untested and untried in an incident as big and as significant as Pike River. It has been developed. There has been debriefing by the agencies involved in that. This legislation, once enacted, will allow WorkSafe New Zealand to undertake much closer oversight of the development of those protocols. That is a good thing.

Like many things in this bill, there are some very good things, but we do not want to sink the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar, as they say on ships and elsewhere. We do not want to ruin what is a very good set of provisions by glossing over what I think is perhaps a minor oversight, taken from reflection about the Pike River incident itself. So I urge the Minister either to consider that very carefully or to at least rise and take a call to explain to us and assure the Committee that this proposed new clause 54B will not impede good-quality, effective, and timely decision-making in an incident such as Pike River. After all, as we know from that experience and, indeed, from many others, time is usually of the essence.

Once decision makers are empowered to make decisions and once the agencies are all there, we do not want them to be obstructed by the need to hang about and wait for all their hangers-on and others who all want their 5 cents’ worth when that may not be necessary for the effective conduct and controlling of an incident such as this. So once again, I urge the Minister to think carefully about it, and to make sure that this good legislation—this new legislation, which charts a new path forward when it comes to disasters in mines and, potentially, in other places in the future—is not let down by a provision that could obstruct good-quality decision-making.

I call the Hon Damien O’Connor.

No options, Mr Chairman! Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Twenty years and 1 week, Mr Chairman, thank you. Can I just say that we have to welcome into the House the major amendment to, or the replacement of, the 1992 legislation. That is what we are doing here. The Minister of Labour was probably still in nappies when the legislation came into being in 1992, I would suggest. So it is important that he take note and understand what the environment was when the legislation, the Mines Rescue Trust Act, was passed in 1992.

It was an environment where the Government was determined to suppress grassroots worker representation across the board. As we have seen, of course, the Health and Safety in Employment Act was totally inappropriate for the health and safety regime for mines. Indeed, in spite of the Mines Rescue Trust Act providing support for the organisation through the years, when the heat really came on and when the Act needed to be tested, it failed.

What we are doing here is putting in place the proper provisions, as recommended by the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, to give both authority and responsibility to the mines rescue organisation. I was fortunate enough to be invited along to the opening of the new facility, the base, for the Mines Rescue Trust, which indeed is referred to in the legislation It has been opened up at Rapahoe, just north of Rūnanga, and will form a very well-resourced base for mines and emergency rescue training for not only underground miners but also tunnellers and people who, up and down the country, are putting themselves into high-risk situations.

Can I follow on from my colleague Mr Little, who referred to perhaps one of the most frustrating things that occurred in the aftermath of the initial Pike River explosion, and that was the frustration of the miners who volunteered to be part of the mines rescue organisation. They train and they pride themselves on having the highest levels of skills and knowledge in underground mining and rescue conditions. They were blocked from participating in any kind of rescue by what they saw as a bunch of shinybums sitting up here in Wellington—people sitting here in Wellington, in their little offices, making decisions about what was best for the minute-by-minute operations that were occurring at the Pike River mine. That frustration should never be allowed to be repeated—never.

The hesitation, the ignorance, the bad decision-making that occurred here in Wellington—sometimes for political reasons, but for whatever reasons they were wrong—blocked the wisdom, the experience, and the commitment of those people on the ground. I do not know whether it was safe or unsafe to try any re-entry or to take any action. It is not for me to make the judgment. But the fact that those people involved in the mines rescue operation were blocked from any real participation was a frustration that I am sure will be spelt out in the book that has just been launched. I have started to read it, but I have not had time to get through it. I know that it was a constant, constant frustration.

I did smile, however, when massive—of course—media arrived in Greymouth and wanted half-daily updates, I guess, from those people who were leading the rescue at the time. People knew of Trevor Watts and Miles Cutbush and Glen down there—they are, I guess, the heart and soul of Mines Rescue Trust. They knew that Trevor was involved or was asked for opinions. Of course, there came the obvious need for someone who knew about the situation to front the media.

By this time, there were a whole lot of flash uniforms, there were a whole lot of flash politicians, and there were a whole lot of flash people fronting the media, and Trevor was the one who had to do it. There was some trepidation and uncertainty about how it would happen, and in true West Coast style—and I was so proud to be a West Coaster on that day—he fronted what was a very hungry pack of media, and he looked straight down the camera and told them exactly as it was. There were no highfaluting terms or ideas or anything—he just told them as it was.

That is the way the members of the Mines Rescue Trust operate. They are not there for the glory. They are there to support their mates, who work day to day in a risky environment and, from time to time, will need help—hopefully, never again at the level that was needed at Pike River. But there are incidents that occur. These people train to get their mates out, and I trust them over any shinybum sitting in Wellington to make the judgment on the right thing to do in a mine incident. And what we have to do—

💬 Hon Judith Collins: They said they didn’t want to go in.

There is one of them sitting over there—classic. Can I say that these people need respect. This piece of legislation, the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill, gives them autonomy and, I guess, the authority to get on and do what they do best, and that is to rescue people, to help people who are in need, and to train people so that they have the skills to work in this environment. This is a good part of this bill, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to implement one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, and that is to upgrade the authority and organisation of the Mines Rescue Trust.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Andrew Little to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 374 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to insert new clause 54B be agreed to:

insert in subsection (4) “providing that such consultation does not impede the incident controller in making decisions in a timely and efficient way” after “the incident controller must consult other relevant persons or agencies, including the persons and agencies described in subsection (3)(c).”