Fifteen years. That’s how long it’s been since 29 men went to work at Pike River mine and never came home.
On November 19, 2010, a methane explosion ripped through the mine on the West Coast. Twenty-nine workers died. The mine had inadequate ventilation, faulty equipment, non-functioning gas sensors, and no safe emergency exit. Management knew. The union knew. Government regulators knew. And yet the mine kept operating, profits came before safety, and 29 families were destroyed.
Yesterday marked the anniversary, with the families still fighting for justice. No criminal charges have been laid. Police say they’re “still working with the crown solicitor” on whether to prosecute, but they won’t say when. It’s been fifteen years of waiting, of being told to be patient, of watching the system fail them again and again.
And here’s what makes it worse: while the families fight for accountability, the Government is busy dismantling the very protections that were built in response to Pike River. Minister Brooke van Velden is watering down workplace safety laws, making WorkSafe softer on business, and creating exactly the conditions that led to the disaster in the first place.
Still no justice
The most basic question remains unanswered: will anyone be held criminally responsible for what happened at Pike River?
In 2013, Pike River Coal Limited was prosecuted and ordered to pay $110,000 to each victim’s family. But the company was in receivership. It paid just $5,000 per family, claiming it didn’t have the money. The company’s CEO, Peter Whittall, faced 25 charges of health and safety failures. Then, in a backroom deal that was later ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, those charges were dropped.
Not one person has faced criminal consequences for creating the conditions that killed 29 workers. Bernie Monk, who lost his son Michael, says it’s outrageous to still be waiting for a prosecution fifteen years later. He’s right. The families deserve justice. The country deserves accountability. And other workers deserve to know that if their employer puts them in danger and someone dies, there will be consequences.
But justice delayed is justice denied. And at this point, it’s hard to believe the police and Crown will ever actually lay charges. The system has protected the powerful and failed the families for a decade and a half.
Corporate manslaughter: a necessary reform
This is why unions are now calling for something stronger: a corporate manslaughter law. Yesterday, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions released a policy demanding the Government introduce a new crime of corporate manslaughter. NZCTU president Sandra Grey put it plainly: “Corporations should not be above the law. If they are responsible for workplace deaths, they must be held criminally liable.”
Labour MP Camilla Belich has introduced a member’s bill, the Crimes (Corporate Homicide) Amendment Bill, that would create this new offence. Under the proposal, companies that have a legal duty to ensure safety, engage in conduct that puts workers at risk of death or serious injury, act recklessly about that risk, and cause a death would be guilty of corporate homicide.
It’s a straightforward proposition. If a company’s reckless disregard for safety kills someone, that should be a crime. Not just a health and safety breach with a slap-on-the-wrist fine. An actual crime with serious criminal liability.
Countries like the United Kingdom already have this. They’ve had a Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act since 2007. New Zealand should too. Because right now, the worst that happens to companies is a fine that often gets discounted or goes unpaid. There’s no real deterrent for corporate recklessness.
After all, if your negligence kills someone, you face manslaughter charges. If a company’s negligence kills someone, they pay a fine. That’s not justice. That’s not equality before the law. That’s a system designed to protect corporate power.
The Government should support Belich’s bill. But Act is ideologically opposed to holding corporations accountable. National is beholden to business interests.
However, NZ First has come out firmly in support. RNZ reports today that: “Peters would not disclose any details of his plan but his office later confirmed he was working with Pike River families on the idea of introducing a corporate manslaughter charge”. Peters was also unequivocal on how he sees the unresolved crime that has occurred, describing the Pike River mine as “a murder scene”.
Going backwards on safety
This is what’s truly shocking: at the same time the Pike River families are begging for accountability, van Velden is actively making workplaces less safe. She’s ordered WorkSafe to shift from enforcement to “guidance”. And she wants the regulator to be less “punitive” and more “supportive” of business. Furthermore, she is narrowing the focus of the Health and Safety at Work Act to only cover “critical risks” in small businesses. Van Velden is also cutting notification requirements. She’s reducing director duties. Most absurdly, she’s even set up a hotline for people to complain about too many road cones – that’s apparently the burning workplace safety issue this government wants to tackle.
The reforms are based on what van Velden heard during roadshows around the country: businesses complaining about “over-compliance,” “red tape,” and a “culture of fear” around WorkSafe. In other words, business owners don’t like being told what to do, find regulations annoying, and want the government to make things easier for them. Hence, van Velden’s plans read like a wish list from the very corporate lobby that once resisted stronger safety laws.
But here’s what’s missing from van Velden’s proposals: any evidence that these changes will actually save lives. Documents released to RNZ show that officials warned van Velden her reforms risk “repeating the failure identified by the Royal Commission” after Pike River. WorkSafe itself cautioned that relying on broad guidance rather than specific regulations could create loopholes allowing unsafe practices without the ability to prosecute.
Even MBIE, the ministry that oversees WorkSafe, acknowledged that a system based on guidance rather than detailed regulation risked “repeating the failure identified by the Royal Commission and the Independent Taskforce in the wake of the Pike River Coal Mine tragedy.”
So the Government’s own officials are warning that these changes could lead to another Pike River. And the Government is pushing ahead anyway.
An internal review of the Regulatory Impact Statement found the Government’s case for change relies on anecdotal feedback rather than data about what actually causes deaths and injuries. The review found no hard evidence that “over-compliance” or unclear guidance are root causes of safety risks. It found the RIS failed to assess safety outcomes at all when analysing the government’s preferred option.
Even after a rewrite, reviewers said improved safety outcomes appeared to be “a hopeful secondary effect, rather than a core outcome deliberately sought.” In other words: this is ideology, not evidence. Van Velden decided what she wanted to do, then went looking for reasons to justify it. The actual safety of workers is an afterthought.
The Reality of workplace deaths
The facts are uncomfortable. One worker dies every week in New Zealand. Every week. Another 17 die from work-related illnesses. That’s nearly 75 deaths per year. New Zealand workers are 60 percent more likely to die at work than workers in Australia. They’re around four times more likely to die than workers in the United Kingdom.
We have 31 percent fewer health and safety inspectors than Australia. WorkSafe makes 80 percent fewer workplace visits, issues 90 percent fewer infringement notices, and issues 50 percent fewer improvement notices than its Australian equivalent.
As Francois Barton from the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum put it: “You are more likely to lead or work in an organisation where someone has been killed at work than you are to be prosecuted.” These are the statistics that should be driving policy.
And what do those statistics tell us? That our current system isn’t working well enough. That we need stronger enforcement, not weaker. That we need more resources for WorkSafe, not cuts. That we need tougher penalties and genuine accountability, not a softer touch.
Van Velden claims businesses are “frightened” of WorkSafe and that there’s a “culture of fear.” But you know who should be frightened? Workers. Because they’re the ones dying.
Anna Osborne, who lost her husband Milton at Pike River, met with van Velden yesterday, on the anniversary. She said she was “shocked, but not surprised” there had been little change in workplace fatalities over fifteen years. She told the minister: “We lobbied the government for stronger health-and-safety rules and regulations in the workplace, but to find that they’re being watered down at the moment by the government, it just makes me sick to think that another Pike River could actually happen again”.
Reporting on the meeting today, RNZ quotes Obsorne on meeting with van Velden: “She seemed to be focusing all the time on the employers and I sat and listened to it for a little while and then I just couldn’t stand it… I walked out of there thinking man that was just a complete waste of time”.
Who Benefits from weaker safety laws?
Here’s a question worth asking: who actually benefits from van Velden’s reforms? It’s not workers. They’re the ones who will be less safe. It’s not families who’ve lost loved ones to workplace accidents. They’re the ones horrified by the changes. It’s not even necessarily most businesses. Good employers with strong safety cultures don’t need weaker laws. They’re already doing the right thing.
No, the beneficiaries are a specific group: businesses that don’t want to invest in safety, that see regulations as an unnecessary cost, that prioritise profit over people. This is, at its core, a question of power. Corporate power versus worker power. The power of employers to set the terms and conditions of work versus the power of workers to demand safe workplaces. And the Government has made its choice. It’s on the side of corporate power.
Van Velden represents Act, a party that exists to advocate for business interests. She got this portfolio as part of the coalition agreement. And she’s delivering exactly what you’d expect: deregulation, cutting “red tape”, making life easier for employers.
This is the pro-business playbook: regulations are bad, business knows best, trust the market, get government out of the way. It’s the same thinking that led to Pike River in the first place.
Before the 2015 reforms, New Zealand had a light-touch regulatory regime. Employers were trusted to do the right thing. Inspections were rare. Enforcement was weak. And the result? A terrible workplace safety record and 29 dead miners.
New Zealand tried the “trust business” approach. It failed catastrophically. That’s why the system was reformed. And now Act and van Velden want to go back.
What needs to happen
The path forward is actually pretty clear. First, police and the Crown need to lay charges over Pike River. Fifteen years is long enough. The families deserve their day in court. The country deserves to see someone held accountable.
Second, Parliament should pass Belich’s corporate manslaughter bill. New Zealand needs a law that treats corporate killing as the serious crime it is.
Third, the Government should abandon van Velden’s safety law reforms. Instead of weakening protections, we should be strengthening them. That means more inspectors, more enforcement, tougher penalties, and genuine accountability.
Fourth, we need to properly resource WorkSafe so it can actually do its job. Right now it’s understaffed and underfunded compared to equivalent agencies overseas.
Fifth, we need a cultural shift. Workplace deaths should be treated as unacceptable tragedies, not inevitable accidents. Every death represents a failure of the system to protect workers.
The Legacy
Yesterday the Pike River families gathered at the memorial site in Atarau. They held a roll call, reading out the names of each of the 29 men who died. They observed a minute of silence.
It’s a vigil they’ve held every year since the disaster. Bernie Monk says they’ll keep doing it “until the government, the police and the Crown see sense in bringing charges.”
The tragedy of Pike River was that 29 men died in preventable circumstances because people in power didn’t do their jobs. The ongoing tragedy is that fifteen years later, those people still haven’t been held accountable, and the Act Party in power is busy creating the conditions for it to happen again.
The families are still fighting. They need politicians fighting alongside them. Not with empty words and meaningless gestures, but with real accountability, real reform, and real justice.
Out-of-control corporate power killed those 29 men. And corporate power is still winning. Until that changes, Pike River’s legacy remains unfinished.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project
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