Another Blog

Two posts in one day! This is not a real post as such, just to inform anyone who reads this blog that I have a second blog about life on a lifestyle section, not many posts and really just getting into developing that into what I hope will be of interest to those who have purchased a lifestyle block or are perhaps considering it. It may help people decide if that is what they want to do or some ideas of what to do with the one you currently live on. I know I am always looking for new ideas and ways to make lifestyle block management easier and also to make it add to the cost of running it. So here is the link to the lifestyle block blog. Please take a look and offer me some ideas on how to make it better.

Christmas Closedown

We are into December, half way through and everything is focused on Christmas and the New Year and of course, here in New Zealand it is the holiday season. I don't know about other Southern Hemisphere countries but in New Zealand the main focus is the summer holiday. On National Radio the other day there was a member of the afternoon show guest panel who mentioned one of his pet hates and I must say I can agree with him. In November we celebrate Guy Fawkes night with fireworks and such like. Why on earth New Zealand celebrates Guy Fawkes I have no idea, there isn't a revolutionary or anarchistic tendency to be found anywhere, but still it is an excuse to let off a few fireworks. In years past fireworks were on sale for quite a period of time before and after Guy Fawkes night but due to pressure groups this got restricted to 4 days before and including Guy Fawkes night. Now back to the Christmas pet hate. The guest speaker mentioned how the New Zealand public have taken to that quite well so we should ban the use of the word Christmas until the 1st of December. That way we wouldn't be assaulted by a barrage of advertising for Christmas from all those money grabbing people who have turned a Christian festival into the largest retail festival of the year. I'm inclined to agree with this speaker. We even have supposed intelligent people saying that the real meaning of Christmas is giving. What? I thought it was all about the birth of Jesus, nothing more, nothing less. Having said that only Christians should be interested in the event, not every Tom, Dick or Harry from every religion there is. If we look back further then the Christmas story is one invented by the church to replace the Mid Winter festivals of old and the Northern and Southern hemispheres would have celebrated that at the appropriate time. That is what we need to get back to. Let the Christians celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus. Do not make that an excuse for excessive spending that has nothing at all to do with the religious festival. That would make more sense for all of mankind. With Christmas being mid summer in the southern hemisphere everything occurs together. The Christmas event flows on into the annual holiday season and that in effect means that after late January the working people must work for 11 months before the next long break from work. In New Zealand we also have anniversary days. These are public holidays that belong to a region, for example Wellington Anniversary, Auckland Anniversary etc and these are Mondayized days to create a long weekend and celebrate the anniversary of that particular location. There are 12 of these in total, so if you worked around the country you could find on an extra 12 days of the year that the region you were in was in effect closed! My thought is to do away with the anniversary day, combine them all together by legislation and create a two week break in July for all workers as an entitlement. In the Northern Hemisphere, take Britain for example, you get 25 days annual leave and most large places of work, factories, government departments etc generally either close or run a skeleton staff over the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year. Then in the summer months workers take their annual leave. This means that the working public get two good breaks per year with the intervening months broken up with Easter and some sort of solstice public holiday at the opposite end of the year. This is a much more sensible arrangement. So back to Christmas. Turn it back into the religious festival it is supposed to be. Ban all retail outlets and other money grabbing organizations pushing Christmas as a time for wasting large amounts of money and food and bring in a defined break in July for the New Zealand worker. Let's get back to the original celebrations that we have renamed to fit in with "Christian" festivals. Mid Winter, Spring Equinox, Mid Summer, Autumnal Equinox and these would be appropriate to the hemisphere in which you live. Not all the world is Christian, in fact most of it isn't, so why on earth turn the birth of Jesus into such a huge world wide event. The answer to that is corporate greed from all those operating in the retail sector and suppliers to it.

The Voters Have Chosen

Thankfully the New Zealand voters voted wisely with their party vote in last Saturdays general election and basically voted to keep Don Brash out of parliament. The man who said "I'm leader for the next three years not matter what!" was in fact lying again, he resigned immediately. Good thing too. With Don Brash it is a bit like to old country and western song lyric, "Why did you believe me when I told you that I love you when you know I've been a liar all my life". So it is back with a National government for the next 3 years with a slim 2 seat majority. Good old Winston Peters made it back into parliament and got a respectable 6.8 percent of the total vote. At least we should get some colorful debate and no doubt the slow leak of some scandal or other he has managed to uncover. As for the rest it is Act with one seat, that result shows that any vote for Act was a wasted vote. Let us hope he gets kicked out next time around unless Act can do something to justify its continued existence as a political party. Peter Dunne and United Future will surely disappear when he steps down in the not too distant future. I'm sure he will do another 3 years but who knows after that. The Maori vote went down, that's the usual price for supporting another party to form a government. The perception from a lot of your voters tends to reflect the strong feelings people have against your larger coalition partner rather than what you may have achieved by supporting that coalition. Along with that was the split that the stupid Hone Harawira. He managed to get himself voted into parliament but that is all. Now we can look forward to seeing how the mix in parliament manage to conduct the affairs of the country for three years. One thing I think we can safely say is that for the majority of people we will all be poorer with the ever increasing burden that government puts onto the resident population. I'd love to be wrong on that!

Too FAT to Fly

A US Airways passenger claims he was forced to stand for seven hours during a flight because the obese man next to him was overflowing into his seat. Arthur Berkowitz told consumer website elliott.org he had to stand for most of the US Airways seven-hour flight from Alaska to Philadelphia, and could not buckle his seat belt during take-off and landing. The snippet above comes from Yahoo Travel. The airline says that the man did not have to stand, very unreasonable since his own seat was partially taken over by the passenger next to him. With the epidemic of obesity around it is about time that airlines and other passenger services that have limited size seats started charging passengers by size and weight. That would be an incentive for fat folk to slim down, particularly if they travel a lot. Let's face it, if you want to send a parcel it is usually costed on a size / weight formula. Why should smaller people pay as much as large ones? A plane full of small people would use less fuel, could fit more people on, it's a win all round. Airlines could have flight categories, fat flights, normal flights and small flights, each plane fitted out to suit the target group and priced accordingly. Fat people have a larger carbon footprint and should be made to pay for it in these carbon credit times! It would have been nice if the flight staff had given up one of their small seats to the passenger affected by his fat fellow flyer, after all it was their mistake in not assessing that this passenger would need two seat. They could have put the fat man in the cargo hold, after all it was only a seven hour flight and his fat would have kept him warm, plus he would have had a seven hour fasting diet. Perhaps it is about time that airlines had fewer, bigger seats in some areas to accommodate larger people so that we could all fly in comfort. We all pay enough for a comfortable passage!

Tea Cup Cop Out

Justice Helen Winkelmann,the ultimate fence sitter. Today she declined to rule on whether a conversation between John Banks and John Key in a Newmarket cafe was public or private. She claimed that a ruling might prejudice a police investigation and therefore has almost ensured that the contents of the conversation will not be made public. What a lily livered decision! Judges are supposed to set precedents by their rulings and in this case could have saved further tax payer dollars being spent by police on a pathetic case. On top of that we have a weak set of media editors unwilling to 'publish and be damned'. What are we paying these weak kneed judges to do? Here we have a highly payed professional, justice Helen Winkelmann, supposedly one of the best from the legal profession, unable to make a simple ruling that if you are in a public place be very careful if you want to have a private conversation. It's a bit like the fools you see around the place shouting down their cell phones saying 'don't listen, this is a private conversation'. If that was the case then take it somewhere private. The whole decision is really a none decision. You cannot expect privacy in a cafe dining area. If John Key and John Banks think you can then they are much too misguided to run the country and represent thousands of voters in their electorates. Let's be frank, our supposedly best leaders and minds are woefully inadequate.

John Key, NZ Police and the System

Yes Prime Minister, a comedy series of years ago being replayed today by John Key, John Banks and the NZ Police. Let's set the scene. Stupid Prime Minister decides to have a drink and chat in a cafe, public place, with a member of another political party to help stitch up the Epsom electorate for Act. Conversation gets taped, poor John and John complain. Prime Minister complains to NZ Police, like fools they take him seriously and start an investigation. It makes the NZ Police look stupid and gives John and John more media coverage and lets face it John Key is the media pony, every opportunity over the last 3 years and more he has been there with his face in the camera even if he has nothing of any use to add to whatever situation is being reported. So here is the Prime Minister in essence endorsing another candidate against his own. Paul Goldsmith is in fact doing an excellent job in Epsom and leading the polls. The system needs to be changed so that it would be illegal for political parties to adopt this type of action before and election. It is in essence denying the voters of Epsom with a proper choice. If they are National supporters they now must decide if they should vote for their National Party candidate or go along with the National Party Prime Minister and stitch up Parliament to suit the cosy relationship between National and Act. Every political party should by law be made to stand a candidate in every electorate and failure to do that should mean that they cannot claim to be a political party but just a group of independent candidates. Endorsing a candidate of a political party other than your own should also be illegal. The coalition of like minded parties should only be done after the election. In fact MMP does not reflect the will of the voting public. If it did not only parliament but cabinet also would be made up proportionally to reflect the result of the election. That would force parliamentarians to work together across the political spectrum. In addition candidates should have to decide if they want to run in an electorate or be on the list, not both. The way MP's rig the current system ensures that those at the top of the list end up back in Parliament even if their electorate voted them out. Finally only electorate MP's should be allowed to be in cabinet, no list MP should be allowed to have a cabinet position since they are only in Parliament as a result of the party vote and have not been selected to represent an electorate by the voters. Let's do it right, give both Johns, Key and Banks a Dear John!

New Zealand - The Elephant in the Room

It is general election time. Every political party is saying how they are going to turn the country around, how they will improve the lot of the average New Zealander. They all talk of broken election promises, past performance, what they will do next but all to no avail as we, the voters, can see from the dismal resulting "improvements" to our lot. What improvements? All we have actually experienced is more expense and less income. National promised to "close the gap with Australia", quite frankly it is not possible with current policy. Politicians talk about productivity, gdp per capita etc. We continue to fall behind Australia. Everyone tries to come up with band aid solutions doomed to failure. The answer is rather simple. It will take time but guaranteed it will work. Since the 1960's Australia has gradually pulled ahead of New Zealand in terms of economic growth, average wages and much more. Some short sighted politicians put it down to Australia being prepared to exploit it's natural resources, it's better productivity record and therefore investment in people and assets. It isn't that! What it is is purely population growth. Australia deliberately took the decision to grow the countries population. In 1960 it was about 10.3 million,in 2010 it was estimated to be 20.9 million, a gain of over 100%. In comparison New Zealand in 1960 had a population of 2.4 million and in 2010 was 3.9 million, 65% growth. Looks good but it is really a numbers game. Higher population in itself demands the production of goods and services, it generates its own growth. Just coincidentally we have fallen 35% behind Australia in wage rates, almost drives you to think it is the same lag as population growth, maybe it is. One thing is for sure, with such a tiny population there is not enough internal demand to drive the economy other than providing for the basics. Manufacturers and larger industry that generates job have no incentive to come here or to be developed from scratch here in New Zealand and it is these industries that generate wealth for the majority. It is great to say lets be a niche and knowledge economy and definitely a worthy aim but these industries benefit the few, there is no trickle down effect, never has been. If New Zealand had a population of 20 million, the country would have a large internal demand driving those industries that employ large numbers of people, there would be more money in the economy to improve our infrastructure. With a larger population the regional towns and cities would grow and prosper. Here in New Zealand our food costs according to one internet site, are 25% higher than those in the UK. Why? New Zealand has supposedly some of the most efficient agricultural practices in the world. Look at the UK, higher taxes, VAT at 18% as opposed to GST at 15%, petrol UK is on average 30% higher than in New Zealand, so how come their food prices are lower that ours? Greater demand, with 60 million people plus the producer makes the money in volume and often is closer to market. Even imports are cheaper because the demand allows a better purchasing cost to be negotiated. The people of New Zealand in general are anti population growth and until we change that stance and embrace population growth and immigration we are condemned to a steady decline in living standards compared to those countries that are go ahead and growing in every sense of the word. Some will say look at places like Finland, they are doing well and that is true but the big difference is they are in fact part of a connected land mass with a large population where most of the trade barriers have been removed. Those that are part of the EEC are free to move around and sell their goods and services anywhere inside a huge trade block. Let us in New Zealand aim for 20 million by 2025, watch the growth then in this country of ours, it would be phenominal!

NZ Act Party and Peter Huljich

Peter Huljich pleaded guilty to misleading investors for the Huljich KiwiSaver scheme. Is he the scape goat? I think so. His fellow directors Act leader Don Brash and Act Epsom candidate John Banks, are let off the hook. Don Brash apparently resigned in October 2010 and John Banks was and still is a director of the parent company Huljich (New Zealand) Ltd and Huljich Ltd. It appears these two directors have no knowledge of such dealings. Well that could be true but very unlikely. What does seem more likely is that they have arranged for Peter Huljich to take the rap to ensure they are not compromised in the bid to get John Banks elected and Don Brash into parliament on his shirt tails. It is highly unlikely that Don Brash could win a seat. The people should be very skeptical of the ability of two directors who don't know what is happening in the company they are heavily involved in, being able to assist in running the country. God forbid we have another death in Afghanistan but these two candidates, Don Brash and John Banks would probably state they did not know there was any Kiwi involvement there. A vote for Act is a vote for dishonesty and deceit.

MV Rena

Early on the 5th October 2011 the MV Rena struck the Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Tauranga, New Zealand.

That sums up the incident, bad navigational practice and what appears to be an attempt to take a quicker route into port.

Now we have the NZ response. What a debacle! With oil on the beaches and containers in the water we eventually get oil recovery teams looking at the situation on the 9th October 2011. Why 4 days? Obviously some idiots hoping we might just get a big wave to lift of the MV Rena and send her on her way.

In addition we have hundreds of local volunteers wanting to clean up the beaches but resort to officially restricting access to the beaches on the 13th October 2011, stating the clean up needs to be done professionally and controlled by the authorities. This is hardly a highly skilled or dangerous operation. Scoop up the congealed oil, bag it and throw the bags into skips or place them at collection points.

My advice to home owners is this, if you drop a bottle of oil on the kitchen floor, do not, I repeat, DO NOT inform the authorities or you will be inundated with kitchen closure and official clean up teams that will end up with your kitchen being closed for weeks.

Well let us proceed with matters in hand. The MV Rena official response team are preparing to remove oil, good you might say, but by now it is 10 days after the grounding event.

Fast forward, the 20th October 2011, still no further on, 100 tonnes of fuel removed only 1200 tonnes to go.

This is totally inadequate and once again highlights the ineptitude of NZ response to major accidents.

Pike River, NZ Police in charge, not a mining rescue expert among them, they should only have been conducting traffic.

Earthquake number 1 Christchurh, lucky time of day, no casualties. Local authority goes around puts stickers on buildings after carrying out what it appears is a very cursory inspection. Green sticker good and safe, red sticker, keep out. Local residents feel reassured and get back to business.

Earthquake number 2 Christchurch, buildings collapse and we have in NZ terms a large loss of life. Oh dear, green sticker building kill most of the people with the local authority saying the building owners should have get proper engineers reports. We forgot, you only employ buffoons at the local authority. And yes it is the residents own fault. We should have known better and it is true, after all look at the leaky home situation in NZ, once again the result of local authority inspectors signing off on poor workmanship.

It may be a great place to live, it may have some good scenery but it's definitely not the place to be in a disaster.

From recent experience the teams they put in charge only make matters a bigger disaster as they fumble around in special clothing, flashy jacket and hard hat with clipboard in hand. They are a joke.

Where else in the world do we close a major highway because of a two car traffic accident where there as been a fatality, not just for a few minutes to remove the vehicles and people, but for hours. Every where else I know of the first thing you do is get the people removed to safety then drag away the wrecks and get the traffic moving and I mean in minutes not half a day!

Political Manipulation

What a sad state NZ politics is in!

Not so much that it isn't all that great but more of one where political parties are able to manipulate the system to ensure that their potential allies and friend get voted into parliament.

We have a system where a political party can choose not to contest and electorate seat and thereby giving a preferred ally the chance of being elected. Once elected they can bring in more representatives using the party vote.

We have the Mana Party led by ex Maori Party member Hone Harawira and the Maori Party considering whether or not to run a candidate against him. Hone is keen for them not to as this would give him a certain pathway into parliament and hence a party leaders salary instead of that of a mere MP.

Likewise we have National deciding not to run a candidate in Epsom against John Banks who is leading the charge for the Act Party. This gives John Banks the best chance of being elected and therefore an ally for National after the election.

This means that the electorate do not get a chance to vote for a candidate from the party they support and in effect deprives the electorate of choice.

The system needs to be changed so that if you are a political party then you must stand a candidate in every electorate or you are not allowed to be a political party. This would get rid of those fringe elements who cannot get enough interest throughout the whole country to stand candidates.

The alternative for these small factions is to run as individual MP's, independent's.

The next major problem in NZ is the list MP. MMP has produced a system where the make up of parliament is made up to represent the total vote proportionally. Good you might think and in some ways it is. But once again the system has been set up with huge holes to allow those piggies with their snouts in the trough to remain there.

How you may ask? Well the problem is that those who stand for parliament in an electorate and put their name on the line can also be placed on the party list so that if they fail at the election, ie the people vote against them and they lose they can get into parliament through the back door, sneak in off the party list. The more influential you are in the political party the higher you tend to rank on the party list almost guaranteeing you a seat in parliament.

The system needs to be changed so that you can be a party list MP or an electorate MP but cannot have a foot in both camps. The down side of that is that for the major parties almost all of the cabinet would come from the list, so that makes way for another rule.

This is the one that should be implemented. You can not be on the party list and also run as a candidate in an electorate and that the cabinet and ministerial roles can only be filled by electorate MP's.

That way we would have proportionality and also be represented by those people who had actually won electorate seats.

No getting into ministerial and high ranking positions without the express vote of the people.

I urge NZ voters to either change the system at this years referendum.

Back Stabbing Brash

Don Brash, you wouldn't want him as a friend. Poor, naive Hilary Calvert, one time supporter of Rodney Hyde and famous turncoat for swapping to support the leadership challenge of Don Brash has now got her reward.

Yes! Stabbed in the back by Don, in effect dumped from the party list and to all intents and purposes, Don Brash, as usual has a scape goat to make him look, "the board was keen to....".

But this is normal for Don Brash. He reminds me of Adolf Hitler, always wants to be leader and will go to any end to get there but wants to come up smelling of roses. Let's face it he smells of excrement. There is no one in NZ politics who sinks as low as Don Brash.

He did the same years ago when joining the National Party and stabbing Bill English in the back to take the leadership, then went on to fail at the general election and that was at a time when virtually the whole country was fed up of a Labour government. As usual Don turned defeat into victory stating that he had come so close to getting the required votes to lead. You still LOST!

I'm disappointed in Rodney Hyde, without him there would be no Act representation in NZ Government. He should have fought for his position and on losing should have announced to run as an independent candidate against John Banks, the new whipping boy chosen by Don Brash to win the all important electorate seat.

I implore all Epsom voters to vote for anyone other than John Banks so that we can see the demise of Don Brash. Just watch him decide to leave the Act Party if they do not get into parliament stating other more pressing interests have taken him away.

Brash is a parasite albeit a very successful one. My advice to John Banks, watch your back!

Population Shortage

New Zealand has too small a population. That's my view. Many share it but an awful lot of people do not.

Statistics New Zealand estimate the population to be 4,408,227 as of today on their population clock. Let's look at that and the consequences of having a country wide population similar to that of a moderately large city in other parts of the world.

New Zealanders like to consider themselves to be part of the modern world and on the surface that's true. We have new technology, a reasonable standard of living, not too many people that are grossly disadvantaged but we are groaning under the strain of having almost no manufacturing base, no widespread access to services, virtually no public transport system. Why? Because we do not have enough people here.

The campaign 'Buy New Zealand Made' has been around for years so the other night TV One found a guinea pig to visit. This family thought they were pretty good at buying NZ Made but when their home was studied and none NZ Made products removed the home was almost empty.

The fact is that it is impossible to practice the 'Buy New Zealand Made' philosophy and to have any sort of reasonable standard of living. Manufacturing here is very difficult if you have a consumer product. With 4.2 million a decent production run would saturate the market and you are left with no one to sell to unless you can find an export market.

Almost all consumer goods are imported creating a huge trade deficit. We have a strong agricultural sector, some good wine producers and food producers and also a growing sector of IT companies that are doing well on a world stage but it's not enough. Global markets have led to ridiculous prices being paid for locally produced food with the consequent income going to the relatively few producers while a growing percentage of the population see their standard of living in decline.

Access to health care is at worst almost none existent and at best moderate if you should happen to live in a city or one of their suburbs. The best doctors and specialists go overseas where they can get a greater range and amount of experience leaving NZ with what's left. They are no doubt good but not at the forefront of the latest trends.

Some years ago in the early 1970's I was living in Great Britain and had a car accident. An ambulance arrived and took me off to hospital for treatment, all very quickly. Thinking about this the other day I realised that from where the accident occurred the ambulance could have taken me to either of 4 large hospitals within a 10 kilometre radius. From where I live now, on State Highway 1, NZ's major road in the North Island, I could not find 1 hospital within a 60 kilometre radius.

The government needs to make a bold move to increase the population three fold at least. Bring in lots of young people who have families or will do soon. Where are the job? People ask. Well if there is no demand there are no jobs. People create a demand for goods and services and jobs are created. We can't just go on drip feeding the population growth and hoping that we will one day have a viable home market.

The worlds larger economies tend to have large populations that have good local demand, this allows companies to grow and gain a critical mass that enables them to enter the world stage in a strong manner and with credibility. It's all fine and well to aim for niche markets and pretend that all is well but that isn't putting bread and butter onto the table of the average family.

We are highly taxed because successive governments want to leave their mark on the country and continually introduce new laws, new standards, more compliance cost and therefore the demand for more income from the tiny population who contribute via taxes. End result, we continue to get poorer as we struggle to fulfill government and local government bludgeoning expenditure.

New Zealand could follow the Australia lead and open up the country to use the natural resources but unfortunately we have a huge number of Luddites in the country who think that they know best and like all pressure groups the manage to influence government and we end up with the tail wagging the dog.

That goes for the political system too. With MMP we have a system that on the surface looks representative but with half the MP's not being directly elected we end up with the representation the political parties choose and not the electorate. But that is another issue for another day.

Let's grow the country, the economy and make this a place where the best leading edge services and manufacturing can flourish.

Auckland DHB to Consider Not Hiring Smokers

Auckland District Health Board Executive Director of Nursing Taima Campbell, proposed the idea, of refusing to hire people who are smokers saying health workers had a responsibility to be positive role models.

This has come about due to complaints from users of the hospital. One of the main complainants is understood to be a man whose asthmatic daughter - who regularly gets treatment at the Starship children's hospital - had been suffering because of smoke blowing inside the doors from staff, patients and visitors smoking out the front.

I find this statement to be hardly credible, the dilution of any smoke from a cigarette being blow in through the doors is laughable. You would have to hold the child directly in the path of the smoke.

While I agree that smoking is a terrible habit and has shocking health effects on smokers themselves and anyone who regularly is subject to secondary smoking this policy is going too far. We already have legislation to ban smoking in the workplace and in some public areas, surely this is enough.

Let's take this positive role model argument one step further. Health professionals should not be hired if they are overweight. Would this be regarded as wrong?

Comparing the two, smoking and obesity both are very detrimental on your health. US studies list cardiovascular problems, cancers and other related effects of smoking as effecting a reduced life span of 13 to 14 years for smokers and causing up to 443,000 premature deaths annually.

Other US studies on obesity list cardiovascular problems, some forms of cancer and type 2 diabetes being caused by obesity and that the obese tend to have a high level or morbidity. Obesity being responsible for up to 365,000 premature deaths annually.

There is not much difference. So let's not employ obese people in health related employment also.

Finally what looks worse, the nurse or normal build who rolls up having just been outside for a smoke and or the grossly overweight one who rolls up puffing and panting and short of breath due to lugging all that weight around.

You decide! Are we all going to be subject to what is perceived to be the ideal person for our chosen profession or are we going to allow individuals to be individuals and have a mixture of people in our lives.

A New Start

Those of you who have visited my blog will notice that all the old articles have been removed.

Time for a new start I thought.

In New Zealand the whole focus seems to be gearing up for the rugby world cup. A lot of fuss over a game, but that's my personal view. I must say I haven't met more that 3 people who are actually excited about the event and they are all keen participants in the sport at one level or another.

I'm hoping the weather will pick up for the event for over the past couple of weeks the whole country seems to have be deluged with copious quantities of rain accompanied with strong gales.

We currently have a Royal Commission looking into the circumstances around the mining accident that claimed the lives of 29 miners in November last year. I feel a good deal of sympathy with the families of those killed but I can't help but think there is a lot of unrealistic demands to recover the bodies of the deceased.

All the families know where the dead relatives are and it would be more fitting to declare the mine closed permanently and turn the entrance to the mine into a memorial to recognize the dead people inside.

I was raised in a coal mining area in the UK and tragic accidents were relatively common place. Mining is by it's very nature a dangerous activity and the best that can be achieved is to try and make it as safe as possible. This Royal Commission will hopefully determine what could have been done better and what can be improved to help avoid any similar disaster.

I hope the Royal Commission will look closely at the initial response and determine if the NZ Police are the best people to be running a rescue operation in an area where they have no expertise. There role should surely only be to secure the area around the site and to allow the experts to get on with the rescue operation and make the judgement calls as to what should or should not be attempted.

We will see over the coming months.