Whistleblower claims it was ‘MURDER’ at Pike River Mine! Is that why the company doesn’t want to ‘fully participate in the inquiry’?
Whistleblower claims it was ‘MURDER’ at Pike River Mine! Is that why the company doesn’t want to ‘fully participate in the inquiry’?
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7 April 2011
Was it ‘MURDER’ at Pike River Mine?
Is that why the company isn’t ‘facing up to it’s responsibilities’ and apparently trying to dodge fronting up to the Royal Commission of inquiry into the Pike River disaster, in a proper way ?
www.stuff.co.nz/national/pike-river-mine-disaster/4854892/Govt-says-no-to-Pike-River-legal-help
“Pike River Coal lawyer Stacey Shortall said the company could not afford to fully participate in the inquiry.
She said the company did not have the money to prepare the documents and witness statements the commission had requested and would have legal representation at only some hearings.”
‘Whistle-blowing’ author of “Murder at Pike River Mine”, Jacob Cohen, sent me hard copies of his work, with additional hard copy evidence to support his extremely disturbing claims.
Essentially, the allegation is that the Pike River mining disaster was deliberate, that the 29 miners were murdered, in order to help build support for open-cast mining, which can then be argued to be ‘safer’ than underground mining.
www.scribd.com/doc/47745564/Murder-at-Pike-River-Mine-SECOND-EDITION-With-Postscript
Here are some excerpts, which focus on Jacob Cohen’s allegation of ‘safety negligence’ at Pike River Mine:
There are strict requirements to provide extensive gas monitoring, safety and health management systems in all Australian mines in which the CEO, Peter Whittall, has been trained and worked.
Had the workers stopped and evacuated the mine immediately the power outage had occurred as they should have within the well-known recommended safety period, they would never have been killed, and probably there never would have been an explosion.
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This is just for ‘starters’!
There is more………. a whole LOT more!
I strongly recommend that you make the time to read the whole report, from beginning to end with an ‘open mind’.
Then ask yourself if there may indeed be good reasons other than alleged ‘financial hardship’, behind the Pike River Mine company not wanting to ‘fully participate in the inquiry’?
Penny Bright
“Anti-corruption campaigner”
https://waterpressure.wordpress.com
Ph (09) 846 9825
021 211 4 127
Was it ‘Murder at Pike River Mine’? Is there a ‘cover-up’ happening now? Read this and you be the judge?
6 April 2011
Was it ‘Murder at Pike River Mine’? Read this and you be the judge? Follows this article…)
www.stuff.co.nz/national/pike-river-mine-disaster/4854892/Govt-says-no-to-Pike-River-legal-help
Prime Minister John Key has ruled out the Government paying the legal fees for Pike River Coal’s receivers during the Royal Commission of inquiry into the disaster.
Key said this afternoon he believed the receivers had sufficient cash to cover the company’s legal costs during the inquiry into the series of explosions which claimed 29 lives, and he was ”disappointed” they had asked the Government for help.
”We would contest the view that they can’t afford to actually pay for legal representation if they want it.
”From our analysis, they had $10.9 million before they went into receivership. They’ve spent about five or six million, so we think they’ve got four to five million dollars left.
”If they want to fund representation they can. It’s not an adversarial court, it’s an inquiry process and our view is the company’s got resources to actually pay its own legal bills if it wants to.”
The Government has funded legal representation for the 29 families of the dead miners and paid for legal assistance for the company’s contractors and workers.
He said the company would be expected to answer questions if called by the commission, which had extensive subpoena powers, whether or not it had legal representation.
At a preliminary hearing for the commission in Greymouth yesterday, Pike River Coal lawyer Stacey Shortall said the company could not afford to fully participate in the inquiry.
She said the company did not have the money to prepare the documents and witness statements the commission had requested and would have legal representation at only some hearings.
Pike River receiver John Fisk told The Press the situation was ‘difficult’, but the company’s priority was preserving its ‘limited resources’ for secured creditors.
The company would still make its executives, including former chief executive Peter Whittall, available to the commission, Fisk said.
Commission chairman Justice Graham Panckhurst told Shortall the commission expected ”active involvement” from the company, particularly in phase three of the inquiry, which would focus on what caused the explosion that killed the men.
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IS THIS A PIKE RIVER MINE COVER-UP ?
WAS IT ‘MURDER AT PIKE RIVER MINE’?
www.scribd.com/doc/47745564/Murder-at-Pike-River-Mine-SECOND-EDITION-With-Postscript
Auckland City Council v Ekenasio (Ike) Finau N.P. No. 3350/01 :RESERVED JUDGMENT OF JUDGE RODERICK JOYCE Q.C. [Application for stay of warrant of committal] 28 February 2003
IN THE DISTRICT COURT N.P. No. 3350/01
AT AUCKLAND
UNDER THE Local Government Act 1974
BETWEEN AUCKLAND CITY COUNCIL
Plaintiff
AND EKENASIO FINAU
of 10 Warnock Street, Grey Lynn
Defendant
Date of Hearing: 20 February 2003
Date of Judgment: 28 February 2003
Counsel: B.H. Dickey for plaintiff
Defendant in person
______________________________________________________________________________________________
RESERVED JUDGMENT OF JUDGE RODERICK JOYCE Q.C.
[Application for stay of warrant of committal]
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I:\JUDICIAL\JOYCER\Auckland City Council v Finau (3rd judgment).doc jab
INTRODUCTION
[1] Against the background of the chronology set out in the Court’s judgment of 1 February, and the subsequent events described in its further judgment of 18 December 2002, the Council comes back to the Court asking for a stay of the order for committal made on the latter date.
[2] The application that gave rise to the granting of the committal order had been heard on 12 and 13 December 2002 on each of which occasions Mr Finau had chosen not to attend.
[3] The order was to include the statement that Mr Finau had breached the Court’s 1 February 2002 order by displaying and continuing to display on his property at 10 Warnock Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland City, signs not permitted under Part 27 of the Auckland Consolidated Bylaw 1998.
[4] Mr Finau was to be committed to the prison at Auckland for a term of 21 days but (in order that he might have one final opportunity to purge his contempt by taking the offending signage down and desisting from any repetition) no warrant for his arrest was to be issued before 17 January 2003.
[5] The Council was instructed forthwith to serve a sealed copy of the order, together with a copy of the Court’s judgment, on Mr Finau and costs were awarded. It appears that the Council did what was required in that respect.
PRESENT APPLICATION
[6] The present application for a stay of that order of committal was made upon the grounds that the Council did not wish to pursue the execution of the order of committal. The formal application made reference to a memorandum of counsel and affidavit evidence.
[7] The jurisdictional basis for the application was identified as R570 of the District Court Rules. This Rule requires that any person seeking the stay of an order for committal may make application accordingly. It is obvious that this Rule is principally designed to provide a means by which the subject of the order may seek
auckland city council v finau (3rd judgment).doc
relief If that is not plain enough from R570 itself, it becomes distinctly obvious when R571 is read with it. However, I am perfectly satisfied that application may also be made by the party which sought the order in the first place. After all, the opening reference is to any person desiring to make an application for stay.
[8] Were the relief sought by the Council in the present case to be granted, the appropriate course would be to order that the committal warrant be permanently stayed. The Council itself implicitly accepted that should be so. Its application documents noted that, if relief were given, that should preclude it from obtaining Mr Finau’s committal in respect of the present proceeding at any time in the future.
DISCUSSION
[9] An application of this kind is plainly an extraordinary one. The Court has not found any case quite like it in the common law world, and Mr Dickey did not suggest there had been any. That state of affairs should not surprise. An order for committal is a last resort remedy granted by the Court to secure the enforcement of its own order when all else has failed. It is a step in what is a contempt proceeding.
[10] In the supporting memorandum, three points were sought to be made. The first was that the signs at present on display at the property were muted in comparison to those previously displayed. They were now of a less controversial nature.
[11] It was difficult to see the point of this point. As Mr Dickey agreed when I discussed the issue with him, what was disclosed as having happened since 18 December last simply followed the pattern of what had transpired between the making of the original order in February last year and the application, much later, for the committal order. This had been just another rehearsal.
[12] What had most recently so occurred was eminently predictable. There was no room for attribution to hindsight’s wisdom. And, fundamentally, the signs now remaining or the signs now replacing earlier ones plainly offended the bylaw and thus the original order.
[13] The second Point was that Mr Finau in public statements of his own and through those of his supporters appears to be using the prospect of his committal as an opportunity to cast himself as a “martyr ” of free speech, rather than as an
auckland city council v finau (3rd judgment).doc 3
individual who has displayed ongoing contempt for Court orders. This was suggested to be an unintended and inappropriate outcome for the exercise of the committal process.
[14] This second proposition quite overlooked that Mr Finau might cast himself (or be cast by others) in any of several roles, but that could not alter the reality of a seemingly ongoing contempt of the Court’s order.
[15] The third point was said to be that Council representatives at a senior level have come to question the utility of the execution of a committal warrant, in that it will not solve the underlying problem with Mr Finau and his supporting pressure group, and given the present nature of the signage will appear a disproportionate and unnecessary remedy.
[16] This proposition also gave me difficulty. It has never been any part of the Court’s task to solve the underlying problem, whatever that might be. Equally fundamentally, how a remedy that only takes effect if the object of the order chooses not to do what is entirely within his power to do ‑ namely, to remove the signs could be disproportionate or unnecessary quite escapes me. The Council had applied for a committal order. Once that was shown to be warranted, what other outcome could it expect?
[17] Beyond that I was told that the Council would again explore further alternative enforcement procedures. Counsel was coy about those.
[18] Following my invitation to do so, Mr Dickey summed his argument up. In doing so he couched it in these terms:
… the process which has been embarked upon is now being used by the respondent or those persons supporting the respondent, not necessarily the respondent himself for inappropriate purposes which cast the respondent as the martyr for free speech, and … by implication cast the Council and the Court in this matter as the oppressor of the right of free speech which the Council perceived to be quite wrong but (is) not something that Council can do something about in terms of public perception beyond implore some accurate reporting of the matter.
As will shortly be seen, the words not necessarily the respondent himself showed some useful insight.
[19] I have already dealt with the free speech issue. Indeed it was dealt with way back in February 2002.
auckland city council v finau (3rd judgment).doc 4
[20] Whether taken individually or collectively, none of the reasons put forward by the Council in justification of a stay appear to me to have any sound foundation in principle. And principles are fundamentals when the Court is asked to deal with issues relating to the enforcement of its own orders.
[21] Having listened to all that Mr Dickey was able to put forward, I was left with the impression that the Council had come back to Court for help with what it perceived necessary for “damage control That may not have been intended ‑ I certainly hope it was not ‑ but it is certainly one way in which its approach might be viewed.
[22] It should not require to be said that the Courts stand entirely independent of Government, be it local or national. That goes to the very foundations upon which New Zealand society is secured. The Courts will not ‑ cannot ‑be inveigled into fulfilling the role of any person or institution’s ally.
[23] So had there been no more to it than that, I would have been very much disinclined to consider the application further for, as I have already noted, there has been a continuing defiance of an extant order.
[24] The proper disposition of this stay application only became clear in the course of the remainder of the hearing.
[25] Mr Finau, having stayed away from the December hearings, was present on this occasion. Events then occurring were distinctly enlightening. A man in the gallery sought to take a seat at counsels’/litigant’s benches. He proclaimed himself there to speak for Mr Finau. His manner and conduct made it obvious that he was utterly unsuited to any such role.
[26] I required that Mr Finau speak on his own account. I could see no good reason why he could not speak for himself, and every good reason why he should. After all it was his liberty that was at stake. He then read out some hand‑written submissions, a task he substantially accomplished with courtesy and dignity. That what he read out comprised a series of propositions that were nothing to the point did not detract from his endeavour.
auckland city council v finau (3rdjudgment).doc 5 5
[27] After speaking for a while he showed signs of distress. That I could well‑‑understand ‑after all his was a precarious position. I offered briefly to adjourn the Court. He accepted that offer.
[28] On resumption he had a new written submission to read and he did that. These, like ‑clearly ‑ the first set, were the handiwork of another. There were other distinct signs but, of itself, Mr Finau’s obvious unfamiliarity with the content of the material he read out made plain that none of any of it was really his handiwork. The suspicions I had already begun to harbour that Mr Finau was but a pawn in a game being played out by others, using him for their own ends, now translated into a self evident reality.
[29] After he had read everything out I drew his and Mr Dickey’s attention to a case that, though not relating directly to an application to stay committal warrant, was one that 1 thought might have some bearing. I gave the parties until 5.00 p.m. last Monday to have a look at, and comment upon, that case.
[30] I have not heard further from Mr Dickey, but a further submission that Mr Finau has signed but which is obviously not authored by him ‑ instead is the handiwork of yet another ‑is to hand. A persisting mark of this case has been the endeavours of others, not parties to it, to put their oar into the process.
[31] The case to which I had drawn attention was Enfield London Borough Council v Mahoney [1983] 1 WLR 749. Mr Mahoney had been committed to prison for contempt of an order that he deliver up to the Council a lead cross, said to be of great historic interest and intrinsic value, that had been found in an excavation on a Council estate. He had been committed to prison for two years. He had taken no steps to obtain his own release when the Official Solicitor applied for that.
[32] The application was originally declined and became the subject of an appeal. The appeal was allowed. so Mr Mahoney gained his release.
[33] On appeal, the view was taken that by then Mr Mahoney had been sufficiently punished and that the prison term had ceased to have any coercive effect. Mr Mahoney was determined never to move to obtain his own release, and took satisfaction from the publicity he was receiving.
auckland city council v finau (3rd judgment).doc 6
[34] I have found that case helpful in the present circumstances. Obviously enough the facts were rather different, but both it and the present proceeding share different threads of a common cord. In the Mahoney case the coercive effect of the sentence was spent because of the sheer intransigence of Mr Mahoney and his self satisfaction in the accompanying publicity. In the present case, the coercive effect turns out to be misdirected.
[35] Mr Finau has been ‑ and would so long as this proceeding remained on foot continue, I am sure, to be ‑ used as the instrument of others in pursuit of their own agendas. In short, the persons truly responsible for his defiance of the Court’s order are not before the Court.
[36] Just as it would have been wrong in principle, and pointless in fact, to have left Mr Mahoney languishing in the English gaol, so also would it be wrong in principle, and pointless in fact, to leave the committal order in this proceeding alive. For that would be to punish a mere pawn.
RESULT
[37] I thus order the permanent stay of the committal order. That stay also precludes any endeavour to recover the costs that were awarded the Council when the order was made in December.
…….. Signed on 28 February 2003 at 2.05pm
(Roderick Joyce
District Court Judge
Solicitors: Solicitors: Meredith Connell P 0 Box 2213, Auckland, for plaintiff
auckland city council v finau (3rd judgrnent).doc 7
CTU raises fears of informant army (NBR post + my comment)
5 April 2011
www.nbr.co.nz/article/ctu-raises-fears-informant-army-nn-90130#comment-87785
CTU raises fears of informant army
The Security Intelligence Service could be able to create an army of informants immune from prosecution, MPs were told today.
Hearings on the Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill started today, but are being held in private despite efforts by opposition parties to hold them in open.
Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly released its submission to media.
It said the bill opened the possibility of the SIS creating an extensive army of informants immune from criminal and civil prosecution,
“We are concerned that this bill sets up structures that will enable random surveillance without sufficient authorisation, at an extreme leading to a situation where there could be a wide network of informants throughout society,” the submission said.
“While this may not be the intent, we should not set up structures that would allow such outcomes.”
The CTU raised concerns about the wide scope of powers, functions, and work of the SIS.
It was also concerned the bill would have an impact on trade unionists and negatively affect free speech, political activities and privacy.
“Our reluctant acceptance of some of its powers should not be taken as indicating comfort.
“With regard to this bill, we are particularly opposed to extensions and broadening of its powers to recruit informants, and in effect to maintain an army of informants in the workplace and elsewhere in the community. There are grave dangers in the proposals.”
Ms Kelly said the committee should hear submissions in public.
“Hearing submissions in secret has few precedents and stifles public awareness of the dangerous implications of the bill, and of the position of the parties on it,” she said.
“We certainly have nothing to hide in our submission, which is available to the public, and it is unbelievable that a hearing of submissions on a bill will turn up highly secret evidence. If a submitter wanted to give confidential evidence, he or she could ask for the committee to go into closed session at that point only.”
Prime Minister John Key earlier defended the secret hearings saying the established rule was that the committee held hearings in private unless its members unanimously agreed otherwise. He argued it was not in the public interest for any holes in security to be aired publicly.
The move to have hearings in open was defeated by the National, Maori Party and ACT MPs on it.
The bill updates and modernises the laws covering the SIS, and deals with the warrants framework, electronic tracking devices, computer surveillance and technology like mobile phones and cyber identities.
It doesn’t change the threshold for warrants that are needed for those purposes but it makes explicit provision for them in law.
Mr Key is the minister in charge of the SIS and is the automatic chairman of the committee.
He appoints two members, and when the committee was formed after the last election he named Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia and ACT leader Rodney Hide.
Mr Goff, an automatic member as Leader of the Opposition, nominated Green Party co-leader Russel Norman.
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MY COMMENT:
“The bill updates and modernises the laws covering the SIS, and deals with the warrants framework, electronic tracking devices, computer surveillance and technology like mobile phones and cyber identities.”
Interesting how the privacy and civil liberties of individual citizens are under attack, when there is so little genuine transparency and accountability for those in public office?
MPs and Judges are not subject enforceable ‘Codes of Conduct’ to help ‘guide’ their behaviour and actions.
There are no mandatory ‘Registers of Interest’ for local government elected representatives, or staff responsible for property or procurement.
New Zealand citizens and ratepayers are not given the ‘devilish’ detail which would clearly identify where exactly our public monies are being spent on all the private ‘piggies in the middle’ consultants and contractors.
Where is the mandatory reporting requirement for the consultants’ /contractors names/scope of contracts/term and value of contracts?
Where is the publicly available ‘Register of Lobbyists’ – so that the public can find out ‘who is meeting the Minister(s)’?
All this blinding lack of transparency in New Zealand, ‘perceived’ to be the least corrupt country in the world, (along with Denmark and Singapore according to the 2010 Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’.
In my considered opinion, Transparency International needs to change their measurement of corruption from one based on ‘perception’ to one based on ‘reality’.
(I suggested this as an attendee of the 14th Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference held in Bangkok last year.)
(FYI – the NZ ‘Corruption Reality Checklist’ which I produced and distributed at this Conference is available on my blog..)
Penny Bright
https://waterpressure.wordpress.com
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