Doing without the canary

The Pike River disaster sparked much-needed reforms to health and safety rules. 15 years on, the coalition government is unravelling them - but they were never fully implemented in the first place.

- REBECCA MACFIE

How long does it take for collective national grief to decay into casual disregard? How long for a shared “never again” commitment to corrode to gimmickry?

These are not rhetorical questions. We can measure the answers in years, months and days.

Thirteen years, six months and 26 days passed between the avoidable deaths of 29 workers at Pike River mine and a ministerial statement from Brooke van Velden, the nation’s health and safety leader, zeroing in on road cones and Santa parades.

Fourteen years, eight months and 10 days between the biggest workplace catastrophe in nearly a century and a ministerial statement spinning the facile notion that health and safety law is so burdensome that farmers fret about whether they can legally send the kids out to fetch the chook eggs.

As 29 families prepare to mark the 15th anniversary of the death of their men in an incompetently run and under-regulated underground coal mine, van Velden, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, is watering down the regime that was written in their blood.

She has instructed the regulator, WorkSafe, to shift its focus from enforcement of the post-Pike law to support and guidance for businesses.

She alleges the agency – which prosecuted in fewer than 2% of workplace death and serious injury cases between 2021 and 2024 – inspires fear among business people that “any little thing that [WorkSafe] finds” can trigger legal action.

She speaks of a “culture of fear” of WorkSafe, a claim unsupported by surveys of businesses that have actually interacted with the regulator.