Judgements Written In Blood

By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them: To the neoliberal political elite the victims of Pike River and the CTV Building Collapse are simply collateral damage in an unending struggle against those who attempt to restrict the free play of market forces.

 

TWO TRAGEDIES: a mine explosion and an engineering failure: and neither needed to happen. That they did happen is attributable, almost entirely, to the influence of neoliberalism – the most pernicious political ideology to assail the modern world since fascism.

 

In a sane country, Pike River and the collapse of the CTV Building would already have brought the thirty-year-long reign of neoliberalism to an end. But “sane” is no longer an adjective applicable to New Zealand society. Sane societies learn from their mistakes. Have we? Do we still know how?

 

 I say “we”, but the collective entity I’m actually referring to is the very thin layer of politicians, business leaders, top civil servants and public relations experts who “govern” the rest of us. For these people, neoliberalism has taken on the unquestionable character of a religious faith and is, therefore, impervious to evidential refutation.

 

And precisely because it is a faith, neither Pike River nor the CTV Building Collapse will produce anything very much in the way of meaningful change. The neoliberal elite fervently believe that “heavy-handed” regulation is a more profound long-term threat to the public good than gassy mines or badly designed buildings.

 

To this political class, the 29 Pike River miners and the 115 victims of the CTV Building Collapse are simply unfortunate casualties: collateral damage in the never-ending war against those who would constrain the free operation of market forces.

 

New Zealanders could take heart if there was even one major political party that opposed without equivocation the neoliberal policies in which their country is enmeshed. But, think about it: when was the last time you heard a spokesperson for the Labour Party not only condemn the policies and plans of the National-led Government, but also promise that, immediately upon taking office, Labour will repeal the legislation giving effect to those plans and policies?

 

Consider, for example, the formation of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MoBIE). This brain-dead bureaucratic monstrosity is the brain-child of National Cabinet Minister, Steven Joyce, and is the very last organisational model a government would adopt if it was genuinely concerned about the health and safety of workers in dangerous industries like mining and forestry. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River Disaster, itself, specifically recommended the establishment of a stand-alone health and safety agency. The Prime Minister demurred.

 

A Tragedy Waiting To Happen: The Pike River Coal Company failed comprehensively to ensure the safety of its workforce. Under neoliberalism it is always Money First - People Second.

 

Now it’s true that Labour opposed the formation of MoBIE and voted against the legislation setting it up, but has anyone heard them promise to instantly dismantle it upon taking office? Have they unequivocally endorsed the Royal Commission’s recommendation of a stand-alone agency or, failing that, pledged to rebuild the full regulatory capacity of the Department of Labour?

 

Come to think of it, has Labour ever honestly acknowledged its responsibility for unleashing the fast-talking, hands-off, corner-cutting wide-boys whose feverish appetite for quick and excessive profit-taking led directly to jerry-built tragedies-in-waiting like the CTV building?

 

Now, to be fair, Labour’s organisational wing has attempted to acknowledge the party’s role in unleashing the neoliberal ideology on an unsuspecting New Zealand. In the first chapter of the initial draft of the party’s new policy “platform” its authors state: “[T]he Fourth Labour Government’s programme of extensive economic reform was in breach of Labour’s traditions and values. Without any specific mandate this Labour government ….. gave up a large degree of regulatory control in favour of unrestrained market forces.”

 

That draft has yet to be ratified, and I must confess to being more than a little sceptical of ever hearing David Shearer or David Parker deliver so unequivocal a repudiation of Labour’s neoliberal past. Not while Mr Shearer’s predecessor, Phil Goff, continues to influence Labour’s economic and social policy-making. It was, after all, Mr Goff who told Radio New Zealand’s political editor, Brent Edwards, in July 2009: “a well-functioning market system is the most effective and efficient way of organising an economy.”

 

The tragedies of Pike River and Christchurch’s CTV Building are judgements written in blood against neoliberalism. Grim testimonials to the moral delinquency of a system that puts profit and convenience ahead of human-beings and safety.

 

It’s now up to us, while democracy endures in this country, to dig down to the roots of our national malaise. To wrench out the neoliberal ivy that is relentlessly strangling our institutions – and killing our fellow citizens.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star.

Blood On The Coal

A Disaster Waiting To Happen: Why was it that for nine years the party in power, a party with its roots in the coal mines of the West Coast, failed to introduce the "belt and braces" safety regulations so crucial to a modern mining industry? Why was Labour, of all parties, so slow to repair the deregulatory damage inflicted upon the industry by the National Party in the early 1990s?

 

IT WAS A SPARK igniting lethal levels of methane gas that killed the twenty-nine Pike River miners. But, as the grim report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy makes clear, the immediate cause of the disaster is of less interest than the manifold failures which allowed the spark and the gas to meet.

 

Other New Zealanders will write about the failure of the Pike River Coal Company to adequately care for its employees’ safety. Much will be said about the bureaucratic failings of the Department of Labour. There will be critical scrutiny of the National Government’s decision to disband the Mine Inspectorate.

 

But the name of this column is ‘From the Left’, so my focus will be on the party of the workers; the party whose founders came from the West Coast pits around Blackball; the party of the coal miners’ trade unions; the party which for nine long years did nothing to prevent the tragedy which, in such a criminally deregulated environment, was only ever a matter of time.

 

Labour took control of New Zealand’s state apparatus on 27 November 1999 and relinquished it on 8 November 2008. During that time three Labour MPs held the Labour portfolio: Margaret Wilson (1999-2004); Ruth Dyson (2005-07); and Trevor Mallard (2007-08).

 

All three of these politicians came into Parliament with strong left-wing credentials. And all of them, I’m sure, wanted to do only good things for the people they represented. How, then, are we to explain their inaction? Their failure to impose a state-of-the-art health-and-safety regulatory regime on New Zealand’s coal-mining industry?

 

Throughout the nineteenth century, the dangers facing workers underground, and the disasters which so regularly took their lives, provided a powerful moral impetus for labour movements all over the world – including New Zealand’s. In 2007 workers’ safety campaigner, Hazel Armstrong, wrote: “The 1890s’ West Coast coalfields have been evocatively described as a ‘slough of despond’. They were notoriously hazardous working environments: ‘There’s always blood on the coal’, miners said.” It’s why the story of Paddy Webb’s 1908 fight for the Blackball miners’ rights became as ingrained as coal-dust in the political memory of Labour Party people. How could three successive Labour Ministers have forgotten so much?

 

Roots: The Labour Party traces its origins to the bitter industrial struggles of West Coast coal miners in the early years of the 20th Century.

 

The late Bruce Jesson offers a plausible explanation in his 1999 book Only Their Purpose Is Mad: “Somehow or other, the politicians … had been persuaded that politics is an irrational and harmful activity. This followed from the firmly held Treasury belief that the marketplace is the source of rational behaviour ….. It is assumed that politicians will always bring an irrational influence to bear on events, not just because they are irrational, but simply because they come from outside the marketplace.”

 

This became an article of faith for the “Rogernomes” of the fourth Labour Government, and in spite of the many ideological and electoral challenges of the 1990s (not least from the Alliance and NZ First) it remained the core assumption of most members of Helen Clark’s cabinet. There was no appetite in the Clark-led Labour Government for a return to the so-called “heavy-handed” regulations of the past. As the source of rational behaviour, the market was still considered uniquely capable of regulating itself. Tragically, it has taken the Pike River disaster to expose the fatal falsity of that belief.

 

Following the Royal Commission Report’s release, Labour leader, David Shearer, was asked if he thought the deregulatory pendulum had swung too far. Mr Shearer responded by saying that “the government needs to be much more hands on than it has been”.

 

It is to be hoped that these words reflect a genuine change of heart on Labour’s part, and that the next time they’re in office, Labour politicians will not hesitate to prevent the private sector’s “drive for production” (and profits) from pushing workers’ rights to effective workplace protection off the agenda.

 

Because if there’s “blood on the coal” at Pike River – Labour helped to put it there.

 

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 9 November 2012.

Out of the Line of Sight (Some Questions For Pike River Coal)

Reluctant Witness: In every thriller there's always someone who doesn't want the detective to see what lies just beyond his line of sight. Why is Pike River Coal sending its lawyers to sit in on the Department of Labour's interviews with its employees?

IN JUST ABOUT every movie thriller there’s a blocking scene. Some thing or some body which gets in the way of the hero’s investigation.

You know the sort of incident I’m talking about.

At the door to the key witness’s apartment, the detective’s confronted by someone who very obviously doesn’t want to let him in. When he gives the witness’s name, the doorkeeper shakes his head:

"Sorry, buddy, never heard of her."

But the detective (and, of course, the audience) can tell he’s prevaricating. There’s something "off" about the guy’s entire behaviour. His gaze keeps shifting to something standing just out of the detective’s line of sight. When the hero attempts to get a better view of the apartment, the doorkeeper becomes even more agitated:

"I told you – she’s not here!"

The door slams in the detective’s face.

　
NOW, THE PIKE RIVER mine disaster isn’t a movie thriller – it’s a real-life human tragedy. But, it’s also a mystery. So, I’m wondering – am I the only person in New Zealand who’s asking himself whether Pike River Coal knows something we don’t?

And, if they don’t, then I’ve got to ask its top guys another question: Why is the Company insisting that its lawyers sit in on the interviews Department of Labour officials are conducting with mine workers?

The Company says it’s only concerned about safeguarding its employees’ – the mine workers’ – rights. But, if that’s the case, then wouldn’t they be talking to their union representatives? After all, that’s what the union’s there for – to protect the rights of its members.

And, in the case of Pike River Coal, that protection is provided by one of the country’s largest and best resourced trade unions – the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) led by Andrew Little.

If Pike River Coal was only interested in making sure that the rights of its employees were being safeguarded, then wouldn’t the presence of the EPMU have reassured them that all was well?

So, why didn’t the involvement of the EPMU reassure Pike River Coal at all? What made it so touchy? Why, when Mr Little and his officials questioned the propriety of the Company’s lawyers being present at what are, in essence, evidence-gathering interviews by the Department of Labour, did everything become so heated?

Think back to those movie thrillers.

When the prime suspect is being questioned by the Police it’s quite usual for him to have his lawyer present. Legal representation ensures that the suspect is not pressured into saying something that may later be used against him in court, should the matter ever come to trial. Suspects (especially in American thrillers) enjoy full constitutional protection against self-incrimination.

But have you ever seen a thriller where the suspect’s lawyer sits in on witness interviews? Just imagine how intimidating that would be. The detectives are asking an eye-witness to a shooting if he can identify the gunman – and the prime suspect’s lawyer is sitting there taking notes! How much co-operation do you think the Police’s key witnesses are going to provide under those conditions?

Pike River Coal is also, unbelievably, demanding that the Department of Labour inquiry team hand over any audio or video recordings they have already made, or make in the future, of evidence-gathering interviews with Company employees and/or sub-contractors.

I fervently hope that the Department’s officials to do not comply with Pike River Coal’s demand. Like the Company’s insistence that its lawyers be present during the gathering of evidence, it runs the risk of sowing very worrying seeds of doubt in the public’s mind as to whether the Department of Labour’s statutory inquiry into the Pike River mining disaster is being undertaken "without fear or favour".

Charging in with lawyers like this isn’t the only aspect of Pike River Coal’s behaviour which has struck a number of observers as being a little "off".

What, for example, lay behind its decision to hold on to the CCTV record of the original explosion for so long? Was no one monitoring the live feed from the mine’s mouth? Had someone been physically present outside the mine’s entrance to see and feel the blast, how long would it have taken to raise the alarm and activate the rescue procedures?

And why, if Pike River Coal is genuine about putting the interests of its employees first, did the Company not insist that union representatives be seated among the dignitaries at last week’s memorial service? The West Coast has long been a bastion of trade unionism in New Zealand. Am I the only one who found it strange that the 29 miners’ union and the CTU weren’t allowed to speak at their funeral?

Was somebody frightened of what they might say?

Is there something – just out of their line of sight – that someone is desperate the detectives don’t see?

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 7 December 2010.

Pike River 24/11/10

Do not think of them in the dark.
Remember them in the light.
For these were New Zealand boys,
Born to sunlight and the Tasman’s thunder.

Do not think of the ancient trees
Pressed black in the earth’s embrace,
Whose richness these miners carved
Out of the mountain’s chest.

Remember them, instead, among green hills
Under a fleeting sun.
Rummaging in the fern with dog and gun
For the wild pig and the running deer.

Do not think of the tears.
The rictus of disbelief.
Of ragged breaths indrawn
Over jagged reefs of pain.

Remember, though the heart cracks,
Their laughter and fierce joy
At discovering along this smoky coast
First kisses, proud promises, wedding days.

Do not think this is the end.
That Death and Darkness
In the deep confer and grimly
Draw a line beneath our Twenty-Nine.

Though it took their lives,
Think of the coal they hewed
Burning white hot
In the world’s furnaces.

Think of the bright steel
Their labour forged.
Lift your faces to the sun
And know the quality of our loss.

Chris Trotter