Note: see EWNZ coverage here, here and here … EWNZ
MURDER AT PIKE RIVER
From Robin Westenra @ Seemorerocks substack
A few years ago I did quite a lot of coverage of the death of 29 coal miners at Pike Creek on the West Coast of New Zealand. =
This was completely eclipsed by “coronavirus”.
However, yesterday I went to a movie just released.
It was a moving film that focussed on two of the widows and their fight for justice. Historically, it was a mixture of accuracy and distortion.
However, more of that later.
I would like to concentrate on an interview (and a book) that caught my attention when it first came out.
THE BIGGER STORY
The audio I posted on my blog has long since disappeared due to censorship but I managed to find it again.
Here it is.
Pike River Mine, Jacob Cohen – Emergency Services Criminally Prevented From Doing Their Jobs
Read the book in .PDF HERE
murderatpikerivermine (1st edition)
Murder-at-Pike-River-Mine 2nd edition
You can see this also covered HERE
HISTORY UNDER THE KEY GOVERNMENT
The film reveals how the government (along with police), from the very beginning tried to suppress the truth of what really went on.
There are persistent claims (by family supporters and some commentators) that:
A large tranche of evidence was effectively withheld or placed under very long restrictions (“embargoed for 100 years”).
One thing that does come out in the film is that a police whistleblower provided the family with footage, recorded in early 2011 by cameras lowered into the mine through bore-holes, showing a pair of glasses, rubber hosing and a wooden pallet and at least two intact bodies.
This is covered here.
On June 19, TV3’s Newshub aired more footage taken inside the Pike River Coal mine in New Zealand’s South Island, which exploded in November 2010, killing 29 men. The video, recorded in early 2011 by cameras lowered into the mine through bore-holes, shows a pair of glasses, rubber hosing and a wooden pallet.
It also clearly shows at least two intact bodies, and there are less clear images of what may be more bodies. These images have not been made public but have been viewed by the families and reporters.
The video is part of several hours of footage suppressed by police for more than six years. It was released to the victims’ families only after some excerpts were leaked and broadcast in April. That video showed members of Mines Rescue working inside the drift tunnel that leads into the main body of the mine. It discredits repeated National Party government claims that the mine is too dangerous to re-enter to investigate the precise cause of the explosion and to recover bodies.
The John Key government wanted to seal the mine with concrete and even proposed making the site into a National Park (something that has eventually.
INACCURACIES IN THE MOVIE
That’s where the accuracy ends.
The film, only just released, practically ended with an agreement between the Labour Party and NZ First with a “commitment to re-enter the Pike River mine”
After the agreement, on 20 November 2017 the Government announced the establishment of the Pike River Recovery Agency “to work in close partnership with the Pike 29 families … plan for decisions on the manned re-entry of the drift of the Pike River mine”.
The film shows a scene with a smiling, toothy, Jacinda Adern that mplies she is the hero.
There are two heroes amongst the families on the West Coast. One is trade unionist, Helen Kelly who appears briefly in the movie.
The other is Winston Peters who consistently supported the position of the families.
However, in the film Peters us conspicuous by his absence and Adern is portrayed as the hero.
Much was made in NZ media of bodies being found
This report says the families were “one step closer to discovering why CEO, Peter Whittle escaped prosectution.
However, it is clear that the cover-up continued.
From 2021
WINSTON PETERS ALLEGES THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT COVERING UP THE MINE DISASTER
Some of the best coverage came from WSWS, a British, Trotskyist publication that shows its true political colours when describing Winston Peters as a “right-wing nationalist”who is posing as a supporter of the families, presumably for cynical political reasons.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/04/pike-a04.html
The Labour Party-led government is racing to shut down the underground investigation of Pike River coal mine. It aims to prevent the recovery of evidence that could lead to prosecutions of those responsible for the disaster which killed 29 workers in November 2010.
ANDREW LITTLE’S COMPLICITY
The article hones in on the disgusting Andrew Little, now mayor of Wellington – one of the most digusting figures amongst a very bad bunch.
The government is relying on the trade union bureaucracy, which has maintained a conspiracy of silence about the cover-up of one of the country’s worst industrial disasters. E tū, formerly known as the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), had 71 members at Pike River when it exploded; its current national secretary Bill Newson told the WSWS in May that the union “supports the government’s position regarding not re-entering the main mine.”
Minister for Pike River Recovery Andrew Little, who ordered the shutdown of the investigation, was the head of the EPMU when Pike River exploded. This is a clear conflict of interest, since the union was complicit in the disaster. It took no action to stop workers entering the mine, despite knowing about the unsafe conditions. In the days after the disaster, Little defended the company’s safety record.
The government’s move to seal and walk away from the mine as quickly as possible raises disturbing questions of vital importance to the working class in New Zealand and internationally: What is the government seeking to bury, and why?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/17/pike-j17.html
THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT SEALS THE MINE
https://envirowatchnz.com/category/pike-river/
On July 30, Winston Peters, leader of the right-wing nationalist New Zealand First Party, visited Greymouth, near Pike River, to pose as a supporter of the families. Peters served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister in Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led 2017-2020 government, which also included the Green Party. NZ First lost all its seats in parliament in the October 2020 election, getting only 2.6 percent of the votes.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/11/pike-m11.html
And, yes, the mine HAS been sealed – something the mine owners and the authorities wanted from the start
The mine has been sealed after the re-entry of the access drift. It is no longer open for further human entry beyond the drift (and the drift itself is now closed). The focus now has shifted to borehole imaging and investigation rather than full human re-entry into the deeper workings (ChatGPT)
THE COVER-UP IS COMPLETE
This appears to be the end of matter
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/26/qgio-j26.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Apart from a movie the issue seems to have just died in the eyes of the public
SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS – A CRIME SCENE BECOMES A TOURIST ATTRACTION
According to Chat GPT
Here are some of the more recent developments:
- The Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) was officially disestablished 1 July 2022 after handing the mine site over to Department of Conservation (DOC).
- On 23 June 2023 police announced that human remains of “two, possibly three” miners were located in the mine during borehole drilling.
- DOC has taken steps to develop the site as a memorial and legacy project: the Pike 29 Memorial Track was officially opened in February 2024, connecting the Paparoa Track to the mine‐valley.
The key oversight/government function has shifted: DOC now manages the site and holds the mine records; the PRRA’s core job is done
A cover-up nicely done!
AFTERWORD
I’ll leave the final word to ChatGPT, which reflects my own thinking
- Bodies still unrecovered – symbolic of a nation’s unhealed wound. The miners remain entombed, and so the event lives on in suspension.
- Royal Commission embargo – even if for procedural reasons, it feels to many like truth deferred; the official narrative remains partially sealed.
- Site handed to DoC – once seen as a desecration when raised by Key’s government, now presented as closure under Labour. It marks the bureaucratic transformation of tragedy into heritage — tidy for institutions, painful for families.
- No criminal convictions – not for lack of evidence, but because the system itself balked. The unlawful deal that let Peter Whittall avoid prosecution was later condemned by the Supreme Court, yet still left no accountability.
- Public fatigue – the story, so long and grim, has receded from the headlines. The movie revives empathy, but for a moment; institutions remain unmoved.
So what is one to say?
Perhaps only that Pike River has become a mirror — of how modern states manage moral disasters. The language of “closure” replaces justice; “risk management” replaces responsibility. A memorial track is built, and the living are invited to walk through a landscape the dead cannot leave.
It’s not cynicism to observe this — it’s simply to note that when a society can’t finish a story, it builds a monument instead.
Header Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay
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