The Government should act now and appoint a chief inspector of mines to improve mine safety standards, says a mine safety expert, amid revelations calls from inside the Pike River mine went to answerphone and subsequent fires at other coal mines.
However, the Government is stalling on making any changes, saying it will wait until recommendations from the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River Coal mine disaster, where underground explosions claimed 29 lives in November last year.
Mine safety expert Dave Feickert has joined calls by the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn for immediate changes, saying the inaction was sickening for those close to the victims.
"I can imagine that the families of the 29 must be sick to their stomachs that their sons and husbands, fathers and brothers have been failed so badly by our country," Mr Feickert said.
"No political party in New Zealand can really hold up its head and say honestly, 'we tried seriously to right the wrong done to the mining fraternity in the 1990s'."
Parliament needed substantially reform safety and health regulation and practice in mining and appoint a special cross-party committee to work with a provisional chief inspector of mines and the Royal Commission, Mr Feickert said.
A snap-shot safety audit by Australian inspectors was no substitute for regular, intensive inspections led by a chief inspector.
The Government should ask Australia to send one of their senior staff to act in the role as a provisional chief inspector, as "the whole regulatory system lacks qualified leadership".
Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder has admitted there had been four fires at the Spring Creek mine on the West Coast in the past two months.
Mr Feickert said the fires, at a mine operated by a company with a better safety track record than Pike River, were another wake-up call.
Yesterday Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson stonewalled questions in Parliament when pressed on implementing mine safety measures immediately.
Green Party MP Kevin Hague said the two men who survived the Pike River explosions struggled to a phone inside the mine and called the surface controller, but their call went to answerphone.
However, Ms Wilkinson said it was up to the Royal Commission to determine what measures needed to be taken.
Bernie Monk, spokesman for the families who lost relatives in the Pike River disaster, told NZPA it was possible that if the situation had been reported "right on the dot of time" rescuers might have had a chance of going into the mine.
Mr Hague has previously called for urgent changes to mine safety regulations, saying the Government shouldn't wait for the inquiry report before acting.
Yesterday he asked Ms Wilkinson whether she would resign if the inquiry found that her department failed in its duty to protect Pike River miners.
"I will await the determination from the Royal Commission of Inquiry. I will be very interested in seeing what it finds," she replied.
