Opinion by Emma Mackie
The latest phase of the Pike River Royal Commission of Inquiry is over, and what began as an investigation has started to feel like a witch hunt.
Let me remind everyone this is an inquiry, not a criminal trial. But try telling that to those who took the heat of the spotlight last week.
It’s with a heavy heart I’ve listened to a long list of problems, inadequacies, mistakes, and oversights at Pike River mine.
And yes, it’s enough to make your blood boil, so I understand the desperation to make someone accountable. But therein lies a dilemma, how can one man be the route of so much wickedness?
The truth is, if you’ve watched the inquiry unfold in excruciating detail, there is no scapegoat to be found.
But there is one rather large monster at Pike River. Call it mass human error, or systematic failure - it’s that sense that a little bit of everything was going horribly wrong, sometimes in small ways, but often in huge, infuriating ways too.
However, that school of thought perhaps isn’t enough. When lives have been lost we’re intent on finding the person with the target on their back.
The commission was told last week, the most likely cause of the explosion was a roof collapse, releasing methane into the mine that was ignited by an electrical spark.
But here’s where I’m exasperated, and I’m not the only one: no-one has been underground to the scene of the tragedy since it occurred on November 19 2010.
This means much of the evidence presented to the commission is circumstantial. It’s theoretical and some of it is based on a stream of assumptions.
The list of possible causes goes on and on. Here’s a small, and by no means exhaustive, list of problems identified through the inquiry.
- The escape route was inadequate
- The fresh air base was next to the gas drainage pipeline
- Stone dusting underground was insufficient
- There was a lack of hydro mining expertise
- There was insufficient understanding of electrical issues
- The geology of the mine was complex
- There was no ventilation engineer
- It was a gassy mine
- Ventilation, ventilation, ventilation
- Contraband underground was a recurring problem
- The Department of Labour inspectors were stretched, and their system was ineffective
- The gas drainage system was not coping with the extent of methane in the mine
- The gas detectors were faulty and inconsistent
- Intellectual knowledge was lost through a “revolving door” of managers
- The stoppings were temporary
- The mine was under financial pressure to produce coal
- Electrical equipment was not properly guarded
- The main fan was located underground
Do I need to go on?
It was a breeding ground for disaster.
But I’m not saying this investigation hasn’t been robust, I’m just saying it was fundamentally flawed because the actual door to the disaster is shut, and we don’t know when or if it will open.
So all of the theories are just that; theories.
And some of those have been baffling. I was frazzled by electrical expert Tony Reczek’s hypothesis of sinister electrical currents, wandering the mine looking for a path of least resistance to spark an explosion.
Contraband was the other witness in the chair. Everything from a watch battery to a coke can, a mobile phone, or cigarette paraphernalia has been blamed.
But just as easily, it could have been an over-heated piece of equipment, a speck of coal dust, or a sudden surge of electricity.
And like everything associated with Pike River, even the theories were flawed.
It was agonising to watch Mr Reczek admit his expert report hadn’t even been peer reviewed, because it wasn’t quite finished.
So the whole thing smacks of incompetence and shortcuts, but you’d be hard pushed to pinpoint one person, event, or mistake and hail it as the baddy.
Our nature, as human beings, is to seek reasons why things happen, and we’ve become accustomed to our own culture of blame.
The predictable fall guys during the penultimate phase of the inquiry, were former mine manager Doug White, and his boss Peter Whittall.
It’s hard to watch a grown man cry, and when the strain started showing on Doug White, I wished I’d had the luxury to look the other way.
The straight talking Scotsman with a penchant for saying it like it is, was seen cracking under the pressure.
With a vital role still to play as part of the police investigation, turning up to testify at the inquiry meant White was walking a tightrope of self recrimination.
He was demonised when the commission uncovered personal emails he sent just minutes after the explosion.
The disgust in the courtroom was tangible. “How could he?”
Well I’d like to take up that question; how could he indeed? The answer is; I don’t think he could.
For anyone to believe Doug White sat back and spun around in his leather chair tapping away at emails, while he knew his men were perishing underground, isn’t just a stretch too far, it’s desperate.
We need to remind ourselves that despite the horror of what happened at Pike River, this was not an intentional massacre of 29 miners. It was a tragic accident, albeit waiting to happen.
And if Doug White did know the reality of what was happening underground while he was sending emails, I wonder whether he was simply in shock.
Understandably, the families’ spokesman Bernie Monk, who lost his son in the disaster, felt White’s email actions were “unforgiveable”.
But in a cleverly orchestrated turnaround, the spotlight eventually fell on someone else, giving White something of a reprieve.
Peter Whittall became public enemy number one, after another personal email saw Doug White calling his former boss a “dodgy git” who told lies.
Who hasn’t secretly slated a colleague in a moment of anger?
But that was all it was, an outburst from White who was upset with his boss after he blamed him for a drop in Pike’s share price. One dodgy git does not maketh a disaster.
One day we heard White called his boss a “megalomaniac”, the next day we found out he just as candidly called Peter Whittall “the nicest bloke you’ll meet in the world”.
So we can’t hang, draw and quarter the former CEO because his underlings didn’t like him at times. Apparently he was a micro-manager, and “that can be frustrating”, as former technical services manager Pieter van Rooyen put it. But it doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing.
In our thirst for the blood of some poor soul, we need to tread carefully.
But for the Pike families who want justice, perhaps finding someone to point the finger at is exactly what they need.
I would probably feel the same in their shoes.