Helen Clark personally signed off on the Urewera raids El Z. I don't think there is much of a halo to polish there.
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Minimoke, as long as we are talking about it, you should get your facts absolutely correct. I usually check before I say anything. In this case, Wikipedia confirms that the correct person is Peter Whittall, and 2 months after starting as CEO, was when the disaster struck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_River_Mine_disaster
But it was well into National's term, November 2010. So they'd have had time to adjust the staffing of mines regulators up, if they'd had a mind to. I agree that Labour seemed to also oversee an initial drop in the staffing for supervision of mine safety in NZ. It was also a cost-saving commercial decision by Pike River to not buy the very best gas monitoring equipment, to use in a known gassy coal mine.
Ah - we agree to agree. Congratulations on excellent taste. It is good and I'd be surprised if that didn't get a high approval rating in a referendum. Sure makes the current one look tired. http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/attachm...2&d=1411519620
Depends on your definition of disaster but PRC was one from start to finish. However I agree with NBT and PRC should rate as no 11 on Bobcats list of things to keep away from the children on this thread. (I'm still wondering what delights they teach him in bible class)
NB more than happy to take the discussion to the PRC thread but you'll have to do better than citing Wiki and I'd suggest you bone up on Peters career where you will indeed find he was responsible for on-site construction, mine development, recruitment of the new operations workforce and capital raisings during a Labour led government.
And to keep on topic Labour was in government in 1987 and won that years election – the same year a coalfield was allowed in a national park. It was after Helen Clark took over in 2002 that we saw a reduction in the Department of Labours Mine Inspectorate, loosing 7 people between 2002 and 2007 and 2 people after that. 2004 had a Labour Minister of Conservation (take that Greenies) allowing the site access agreement. Pike River was a dog by 2008 as was the mining inspectorate. Hard to blame National for that
Maybe a Labour government did pull back on staffing for the mine inspectorate, but I bet the safety rules were still in place. Shareholders implored PRC to get moving to meet targets, and I think management cut a few corners trying to get there. Some experienced miners left the site beforehand, they were too worried about the risks to stay. Certainly it wasn't all National's fault that safety rules weren't enforced enough on their watch. But the govt certainly sat on their hands afterwards, it wasn't what you'd have seen from Labour.
UNICEF on child poverty in NZ.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/nz-c...unicef-6091613