The road to getting back into Pike River

Saturday, 17 November 2018

Representatives of some of the Pike River families - Anna Osborne, Sonya Rockhouse and Bernie Monk - talk of their elation at the decision to re-enter the mine. (First published November 2018)

It all started on a road.

Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse were desperate when they drove along that road, up to the Pike River access mine on November 12, 2016.

It was a last ditch attempt to stop the National Government and failed state-owned mining company Solid Energy plans to permanently seal the Pike River mine.

Andrew Little, Pike River Minister, announced re-entry to recover the 29 bodies from the mine in February 2019. Family members, from left, Anna Osborne, Sonya Rockhouse and Bernie Monk.

If sealed, it would eradicate any hope of re-entering the drift, recovering bodies, or finding evidence as to what caused the explosion.

* Pike River: 'We're going in'

* Inside Pike River: Parent Bernie Monk enters the mine

* Pike River boss Peter Whittall guilt-free, living in Australia

* Police prepare to reopen investigation into Pike River

* The promise to Pike River miners

* Sealing of Pike River mine will be stopped**

Osborne had just completed chemotherapy for Hodgkins Lymphoma, which reared its head again after many years of remission. She had no hair and was walking with the help of a stick.

The pair parked a small caravan on that road and pitched up two folding deck chairs against the locked gate.

'You know we're not moving aye,' Rockhouse told gathered media, 'we're not going anywhere'.

This week, Pike River Minister Andrew Little announced the mine drift would be re-entered, and examined for any bodies and evidence as to how the explosion happened eight years ago on November 19, 2010.

For the pair, that announcement started on that road two years ago.

Osborne's husband, Milton, and Rockhouse's son, Ben, were among the 29 men who never came home from work in 2010.

They have never stopped fighting for justice and body recovery. Especially after they received advice from international mining experts that a re-entry to the 2.3-kilometre tunnel leading into the mine could be done safely.

Solid Energy, which bought the mine after the explosion, investigated the possibility of re-entering the drift – the plan was rejected by the Government as being too unsafe.

Instead, they decided to build a new Great Walk, encompassing a memorial and interpretation centre at the Pike River mine site. The family group voted to accept the Great Walk memorial.

Osborne did not want the Great Walk, and did not accept the decision not to enter the mine drift.

She said the family group, whose spokesperson had been Bernie Monk since the explosion, had largely accepted they would never get into the mine.

'That didn't sit with me,' Osborne remembers, 'It was still an unexplored crime scene. If we allowed that that seal to be put in entombing our men forever we would never have gotten the police back in there to investigate what happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.'

At the time of the protest, work to seal the mine with 30m of concrete had already begun, but Osborne and Rockhouse were determined no concrete trucks would get past their tiny caravan.

They were supported by Monk and all but three of the Pike River families.

When Osborne had to leave for hospital treatment, she was replaced by teams of supporters who kept up the blockade for 13 weeks.

The Stand with Pike campaign rallied support from all over New Zealand. They got the support of concrete firms and contractors who said they would not seal the mine while the families were protesting. They painted white crosses and set up effigies of the 29 men on the road.

They even managed to take ownership of a slice of the road, which had been omitted from the Pike River Mine access agreement with a local farmer.

Day in day out the protest continued, they allowed Solid Energy vehicles to go past the blockade to conduct their gas readings, and site checks but vowed no concrete trucks would get past them.

They were joined by politicians from the opposition including the Green Party, Winston Peters and Labour's Andrew Little.

Police were called to accompany Solid Energy staff to access the mine site, Osborne recalls feeling like a criminal for standing up for something she believed so strongly in.

In February 2017, the families met with then Prime Minister Bill English who agreed to halt the seal and investigate an unmanned entry to the drift using robots.

However, those investigations did not come to any fruition until the September 2017 election.

Peters had made Pike River re-entry one of his coalition deal breakers so he chose Labour who promised to set up an agency to come up with a re-entry plan.

That plan was approved by Little on Wednesday.

Osborne said it was a victory for the 'little people'.

'You need to be that squeaky wheel, you need to be that voice. If you believe in something long enough and hard enough you'll get people to listen. For our men we couldn't let things lie and say that's it and wash our hands of it. We needed to fight we needed to bring our men home if we can. We need answers to questions that we don't have we need that crime scene to be investigated and that's what's going to happen.'

In his announcement Little said, he wanted to include the Pike River families in every major decision and to be transparent to the people of New Zealand.

'What I was determined to fix on day one is the way the families were shut out, not given information and not kept up to speed with what was happening. There may be explanations on the part of the previous Government and Solid Energy, in any event it's not the approach that should be taken for something like this where you have families that have such a vital stake in what is going on,' he said.

'The basic courtesy is you let people know what's happening and there's always the potential for a difficult decision to be made at some point but if the families aren't involved in getting the same information and assisting in coming to that point then it's not a way to treat people.'

Osborne and Rockhouse also had a legal victory when the Supreme Court ruled WorkSafe's decision to drop the charges against Pike River mine chief executive Peter Whittal was unlawful. WorkSafe cannot re-lay the charges but NZ Police has kept the file open until new evidence is found to lay criminal charges.

Osborne is confident evidence will be found in the drift.

She said there was a piece of machinery in the Pit Bottom in Stone area off the drift which was akin to a 'black box'.

'We know Pit Bottom in Stone survived the main blast because that's where Daniel Rockhouse, one of the survivors, was. There is a substation there that will hold a lot of evidence,' she said.

It was less likely that bodies will be found in the 400m of previously unexplored tunnel but it was possible because a drift runner, or taxi, had just gone in to pick up men who were finishing their shift. She believes it could have been on its way out.

Osborne, who is still undergoing treatment and hoping to go back into remission, is clear she will not stop fighting for full re-entry to the mine.

She has been talked to technical experts about how it could be done. Once the teams explored the drift, they will be able to get a clearer idea of the condition and size of the rockfall blocking the mine workings.

'I will continue on and fight. People say to me 'Anna just move on for the sake of your health and the sake of your family. Let them rest where they lie. But I just can't move on. My husband was my world. He deserved to be laid to rest in a place of our choosing. He wasn't a miner, he was a contractor and he didn't like enjoy working at Pike River. He was two weeks from leaving when the mine blew up. That stole our future, our hopes, dreams and ambitions and changed our family forever,' she said.

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