A Funny Thing Happened

If I said that Kate Wilkinson had the blood of the Pike River miners on her hands I would be rightly booed and jeered, and accused of politicking over the men's deaths.

Key To Open For The Black Caps?

So the economy is shot to hell, and our political leaders don't seem to know or care how to fix it.

Let's instead focus on the important things. Like the cricket.

Prime Minister John Key was leading from the front today. He may have dropped the ball on the Pike River issue (Phil Goff has rightly slammed him for being all promises at the time of the disaster but leaving all decisions since then to others - couldn't Key show some leadership on this issue?), but he was in imperious form at the Basin Reserve this afternoon. In the words of TV3 reporter Andrew Gourdie:

Prime Minister John Key entered the commentary box for some words of wisdom in the final session; precipitating another breakthrough for the New Zealand skipper, getting rid of Asad Shafiq.

Key does a guest commentary stint, a wicket falls while he's on air, and now Key's a genius. It figures.

So could our PM be NZ cricket's secret weapon? Naturally, I'm not suggesting for a moment that he would have the wicket-taking potency of a Richard Hadlee. No, Hadlee could never take wickets while sitting in a chair, so can't be compared to our PM.

I wonder if Key could open the batting too. He is so beloved of humanity that I'm sure the other team would feed him runs.

Too Soon To Apologise?

The union movement has criticised Pike River CEO Peter Whittall because he has failed to apologise for the disaster that led to the deaths of 29 men.

Nobody yet knows what led to the deaths of the men, and it is too early to say whether Pike River is culpable. It is easy to say that more should have been done, and that no accident like this should occur, but if we learn through the enquiry that everything was done to the highest industry standards, should we still blame the company? Mining is an inherently risky business, as everyone involved in the industry will know.

But we may well learn from the enquiries that the company cut corners, and that management didn’t take sufficient steps to reduce the risk of accidents. Allegations are beginning to surface to that effect, and TVNZ’s Sunday programme last night interviewed a worker from the mine who made some quite serious claims about the lack of safety at the site.

However, those allegations have not yet been examined in detail.

So calling on Whittall to apologise when we don’t even know what caused the accident seems premature.

Additionally, an apology might be seen as an admission of liability. Whittall may be under orders from Pike River’s insurers not to make any admissions of liability. So his hands may well be tied. Pike River is insured for millions, and it may well be the money from insurers that one day allows the mine to reopen. I can understand why Whittall might not want to jeopardise that possible eventuality for what would be a largely meaningless apology. I say meaningless, because most people would accept that at this point nobody knows who, if anyone, is to blame for the deaths.

I don’t buy the media adulation of Whittall, and some of his angelic halo may start rubbing off during the course of the many investigations now being launched.

But I can also understand why he has not apologised.

Update: David Farrar compares the union attack on Whittall with the smearing of Sir Peter Jackson. I don’t think the two are comparable in any way. If Whittall turns out to have been directly involved in the cutting of safety corners the unions may end up with a big PR win. They will say “we told you this right from the start”. Also, as far as I know, nobody lost their lives during the Hobbit dispute. So it is not an apt comparison.

What To Say?

The Pike River tragedy has left me numb, and there's really not much point in posting anything about it. I can't imagine how awful this must be for the families of the miners.

The only useful remark I can provide is that at first blush the second explosion seems to vindicate the decision by rescue teams not to enter the mine. Had they been attempting a rescue this afternoon they'd have been blown to smithereens.

But all that is for an official enquiry, I suppose.

This Isn't Hollywood

I have avoided writing anything about the Pike River disaster, because the last thing this event needs is someone giving their opinions on the actions of police and rescuers.

That hasn’t stopped others in various media forums and social media from telling the police how to do their job.

The Herald is now inviting people to tell them whether they are happy with the handling of the disaster.

And others have complained because the style of the police officer in charge of the situation, Tasman Area Police Commander Superintendent Gary Knowles, is a little on the abrasive side.

Perhaps the editors of the Herald have a background in mining search and rescue techniques, though I doubt it. So they really are in no position to judge whether everything that should be done is being done. Nor are the dozens of fools writing in to express their outrage, the vast majority of whom have never been within 500 metres of a mine.

When we want a difficult job done we rely on the experts. They’re experts because they have training, experience and industry knowledge. That doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes, but if you’re going to challenge the actions of an expert you’d better have a little more than the experience of watching Hollywood blockbusters to guide you.

Sadly, that’s where most of the criticism seems to be headed. Some people seem to think that the rescuers can just walk in there and find the men. Never mind that the combination of lethal gases and potential for further explosions could kill each and every one of the rescuers in an instant. Why should we demand that the rescuers risk their lives in this manner? What about their families? What do we do if the rescuers get stuck down there? Do we send yet more rescuers?

I have no idea whether the authorities are handling the situation appropriately. But then my opinion would be irrelevant in any event, because it would be as uninformed as the views of the buttheads writing to the Herald.

When this is over there should be a thorough official investigation. That investigation should examine whether the rescue mission was conducted properly, and whether anything more could have been done to rescue the men. That will be the time for analysis and judgement, not now.

As for the fact that Superintendent Gary Knowles lacks polish in his press conferences and is abrasive, I just don’t care. Perhaps if he wasn’t fielding so many idiotic questions from the media he might present better. I only care that he’s doing the job properly: the job of getting the 29 miners out.