Has John Key handled the decision to seal Pike River poorly?

[Pussy]

Yeah, John Key was probably responsible for the Apollo 13 incident, no doubt he shot JFK, and single handedly caused the Wahine and Erebus disasters, too.....

[Mully]

Yeah, John Key was probably responsible for the Apollo 13 incident, no doubt he shot JFK, and single handedly caused the Wahine and Erebus disasters, too.....

He also gave Stephen Hawking cripple. Hawking was a famous skateboarder before John Key had a go at him.

[shrub]

If it's not a case of $$$, then why have they stopped after all this time? I would have thought, JK being such a smart man, that he would have spoken with the families and explained that they would continue for another week and if no progress was made, then they'd seal it. JK should have made the initial announcement, not Broad.

Like I said, poorly handled from a PR perspective, and in an election year every point scored is valuable. He had the chance to be seen as the kind and caring Uncle John, friend of orphans and widows, by being seen to have worked with the families to satisfy their concerns, involve them in the decision making process and eventually do the logical thing and shut the mine down. Instead Broad makes the first announcement followed by Key making a seemingly hastilly called together second announcement. He has now cost National credibility in the Coast running the risk of them returning to Labour.

His strategists must be fuming because he had won so many browny points when the crisis happened, and now he's lost them.

[mashman]

His strategists must be fuming because he had won so many browny points when the crisis happened, and now he's lost them.

They could have done things a damn site better, but I doubt this is gonna damage his credibility as much as you think... i hope i'm VERY wrong though

[onearmedbandit]

Maybe it was a conspiracy. Maybe those 29 miners were actually all about to blow the whistle on some dirty doings by the CEO so they put them all together on a 'shift', sent them down there and then blew the place up. Realising that they may have survived, they executed another 3 explosions to ensure their silence. Then, on the pretence of 'rescuing the bodies' with the 'gag' unit, they pumped the place full of dangerous gases, then declared it unsafe to enter, but only after first sealing it forever.

People, this is why no rescue was ever mounted. The 'experts', 'engineers', 'rescue crews' etc were all in on it. They succeeded with the attacks on the twin towers, don't let them get away with Pike river.

[Headbanger]

Ah huh, and your post is like saying "Calling all flamers to tell me what a silly bitch I am".

Wait a god damn minute, she maybe hot.

[Pixie]

It seems to me from a quick obervation that he could well lose all the goodwill he earned when it all happened. I agree that the time has to come when a decision is made to give up trying to recover the bodies, and from what I understand from talking to someone who knows about these things all that is likely to be found will be fragments of bone, but I think the decision was made poorly.

It seems from what I have read on the net that the families received little warning and were not consulted with adequately. They are being quoted as saying that they weren't ready to give up looking and they are planning to contract an expert to provide a report when 3 of these have already been prepared. If they are willing to spend that kind of money it would suggest that they weren't aware of the other reports given they were apparently unequivocal.

So they're up in arms, and this could cost Key big time. Be interesting to see what his spin doctors do.

No kidding?
Only in NZ do you get the Police in charge of a mining recovery operation (when they can't even figure out how to work a gun or a car correctly) and talking like they know their arse from a hole in the ground.The consultants from overseas were wondering what the fuck kind of mickey mouse country they had arrived in.

[Pixie]

the only thing I don't understand, and i'm an expert, because I watched the chilean mine disaster on TV, is why instead of trying to clear 2kms of shaft with an engine, they didn't just drill down to the area from above a la chile. I'm sure there must be a perfectly good explanation for that.

If it's not a case of $$$, then why have they stopped after all this time? I would have thought, JK being such a smart man, that he would have spoken with the families and explained that they would continue for another week and if no progress was made, then they'd seal it. JK should have made the initial announcement, not Broad.

The Chilean mine didn't have a fire in it (apart from the risk of fire from Jose's refried bean farts)

[Coldrider]

The chilian mine was of gold and copper.

[Kookie]

It's humorous, and scary, to think a person can become an expert, after watching it on TV.

[Banditbandit]

It was really the only logical thing to do, but the validity of the decision is not in question, rather how Key's publicity people handled it.

He had little to do with the decision, but because of his involvement at the begiining and the masterful way he worked the crowds and came down to the level of the community he is therefore linked to the decision. Despite him having little or nothing to do with it, he was linked so needed to manage how the decision was made and fed to the families.

He held a press conference where he announced the decision, which was entirely appropriate and now he is being accused of breaking promises and there is a potential "he says - she says" scenario with grieving familes, and that's a battle he will not win.

It would have been wiser to involve the familes in the decision making process, make them privy to the reports of the experts and managed them to the point where they felt included and able to accept the decision.

Fro the families, there is no easy way to release the decision ... for the rest of us "experts" ... it's none of our business

[Banditbandit]

Let's face it. No-one's ever going to give the Tories an easy time on the West Coast.

They gave the tories enough votes to elect on as MP

[Banditbandit]

Wait a god dome minute, she maybe hot.

A lot of "hot" woman are dumb, silly bitches ... Paris Hilton for example ...

[SPman]

From the Standard

You would think that, to reassure the families and satisfy critics, the government would have released detailed technical analysis showing why re-entering Pike River will never be possible. Instead, we got vague, contradictory statements only after the media pressed Key for answers. Now, a mining expert has confirmed the mine’s atmosphere is stable and can be made breathable cheaply.
Here’s the key passages from the Press article:

Mine safety expert Dr David Cliff, of the University of Queensland, said that while the atmosphere in the West Coast mine had improved, to say it was safe to enter was a “quantum leap”.
Cliff was among the experts consulted by police before last week’s announcement that the mine would be sealed.
He said there had been a “marked improvement” in the mine atmosphere over the past few days.
“The atmosphere is now inert without the use of the GAG [Gorniczy Agregat Gasniczy],” Cliff said.
“It’s not capable of supporting combustion. It’s full of methane, as far as we can detect. …
The mine’s atmosphere was close to 100 per cent methane, with oxygen excluded, he said.
“Therefore it’s a dramatic improvement. There’s no active ignition sources in the mine, most probably, but we still don’t know for sure.”
If conditions were maintained, there would be “no more explosions”, Cliff said.
“The atmosphere is one part of the equation – there’s the mining conditions, it is the logistics of re-entering up a single tunnel that is 2.5-kilometres long into unknown conditions – these are the sort of factors bearing on people’s minds.”
Bore holes would be required to stabilise the mine, at a cost of $250,000 each.
Pike River Families Committee spokesman Bernie Monk said they had had no information.
“The main thing is to get our loved ones out.
“Number two, we need the proper information to go to the coroner at the end of the month.
“Number three, we need to get in there to find out the truth of what has happened. We don’t want any hearsay,” Monk said.”

So, the mine isn’t safe but there’s no more burning and no more ignition source to re-start the burning because lack of oxygen has put the fire out. It’s not yet safe to enter but a few quarter of boreholes at quarter of a million a pop – so the methane is let out and normal atmosphere in – and the following goals can be achieved: remains can be recovered, evidence in the mine can be examined, a potentially dangerous concentration of methane on DoC land can be eliminated and, possibly, the process of getting the mine back into operation can begin. Seems pretty cheap.
This makes the government’s inadequately explained decision to halt the process even odder.
Odd too, is Gerry Brownlee’s insistence that the receivers decide by the end of today what they will do with the mine. As the Press’s editorial asks, ‘what’s the rush?’. Another way of asking that question is ‘who benefits from rushing the receivers into a decision?’.
I don’t know. I can’t puzzle it out. I just can’t see any motive for the government’s bizarre behaviour, unless it really is about cost and the government set a limit of $5 million which has now been reached.
But I do know that if the government was telling us the whole story then everything would be out in the open and above board – we wouldn’t have ministers ducking from the media and giving vague, shifting answers.

Once again, if Pollies were actually up front with all the facts and treated people as adults, who can understand whats going on, maybe they wouldn't appear to be despicable weasly little pricks, all the time!

[shrub]

Fro the families, there is no easy way to release the decision ... for the rest of us "experts" ... it's none of our business

I disagree, the ability of our PM to run the country is every bit our business. And bloody interesting - I heard him described today (by a politician) as being "a little directionless and lacking any real ideological position on anything" and wanting to be liked by everyone, so he says what people want to hear. Hence his silly idea of promising the miners families to get the bodies out