NZISM News 26 November 2025
To mark the 15thanniversary of the tragedy at Pike River Mine, we asked leading criminal barrister and lawyer for the Pike River families, Nigel Hampton KC, to provide his reflections on Pike River, and health and safety more generally.
It was an exceptional session and the webinar recording is now available to members.
Nigel has generously allowed us to reprint his comments.
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Nigel Hampton KC
21 November 2025
These notes were made prior to a meeting which I attended, along with
Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse, with Minister Brooke van Velden – a
meeting held on, of all days, the 15th anniversary of the Pike explosion, a
day when these two women should have been with the other Pike families
on the Coast commemorating and grieving their losses and their ongoing
trauma. Nothing I heard on Wednesday eased, appeased or assuaged any
of the concerns which I’ll go on to express now. In fact, my concerns were
enhanced: a Minister who has not read the Pike Royal Commission report
and who acts on her own anecdotes which she says that she has collected from
terrified (yes, “terrified of WorkSafe”!) employers around the country (only employers,
I note; not one worker apparently); who acts on anecdotal claims and not on evidence-
based studies.
Now to my actual starting place...
Back in June this year, being concerned as to positions being taken and remarks being made by
various politicians, being some members of the cabinet of the present coalition Government, I felt
impelled to submit an opinion piece to Stuff setting out some of my worries, which I entitled “A
Health and Safety Calamity in New Zealand?”, which Stuff did publish in a trimmed down form.
What I say today is based on those earlier remarks of mine. To some, what follows may sound like a
polemic rather than a webinar, but then again this is my style – and will always be my style – when
talking on matters on which I hold strong views, and in trying to move and convince others about
the correctness of those views. (A failure to move a Minister on Wednesday, I observe).
Glad I was therefore when, a few months on, my opinion piece was referenced – and very favourably
- by a Health & Safety practitioner on LinkedIn. Thank you, Christel Fouche, for your expert
summary of my concerns and for the discussions then generated, leading to Jeff Sissons contacting
me and asking if I would contribute something to mark two anniversaries – 15 years on since the
Pike River explosion (19 November 2010) and 10 years since the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015
(4 September 2015).
Hence today.
Following any calamity, and especially any calamity involving the loss of a life, rightly there arises
from bereft families and from the public more generally, a plea for an inquiry to be held as to the
how and the why this disaster occurred.
The authorities, whether police, statutory regulators, coronial, or political (through statutory
commissions) respond; with the mantra being heard that this inquiry is to be held and that
recommendations will be made and acted upon, so that lessons will be learned and that such a
disastrous occurrence will not happen again.
If only that mantra were true in New Zealand.
And now a pause. Why am I, a roughhouse criminal trial lawyer (starting from over 60 years ago)
talking to you, the experts in H&S fields, about such matters? The connections one makes in life
sometimes result in unexpected consequences. And so it was when Andrew Little (now the newly
Nigel Hampton KC
21 November 2025
These notes were made prior to a meeting which I attended, along with
Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse, with Minister Brooke van Velden – a
meeting held on, of all days, the 15th anniversary of the Pike explosion, a
day when these two women should have been with the other Pike families
on the Coast commemorating and grieving their losses and their ongoing
trauma. Nothing I heard on Wednesday eased, appeased or assuaged any
of the concerns which I’ll go on to express now. In fact, my concerns were
enhanced: a Minister who has not read the Pike Royal Commission report
and who acts on her own anecdotes which she says that she has collected from
terrified (yes, “terrified of WorkSafe”!) employers around the country (only employers,
I note; not one worker apparently); who acts on anecdotal claims and not on evidence-
based studies.
Now to my actual starting place...
Back in June this year, being concerned as to positions being taken and remarks being made by
various politicians, being some members of the cabinet of the present coalition Government, I felt
impelled to submit an opinion piece to Stuff setting out some of my worries, which I entitled “A
Health and Safety Calamity in New Zealand?”, which Stuff did publish in a trimmed down form.
What I say today is based on those earlier remarks of mine. To some, what follows may sound like a
polemic rather than a webinar, but then again this is my style – and will always be my style – when
talking on matters on which I hold strong views, and in trying to move and convince others about
the correctness of those views. (A failure to move a Minister on Wednesday, I observe).
Glad I was therefore when, a few months on, my opinion piece was referenced – and very favourably
- by a Health & Safety practitioner on LinkedIn. Thank you, Christel Fouche, for your expert
summary of my concerns and for the discussions then generated, leading to Jeff Sissons contacting
me and asking if I would contribute something to mark two anniversaries – 15 years on since the
Pike River explosion (19 November 2010) and 10 years since the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015
(4 September 2015).
Hence today.
Following any calamity, and especially any calamity involving the loss of a life, rightly there arises
from bereft families and from the public more generally, a plea for an inquiry to be held as to the
how and the why this disaster occurred.
The authorities, whether police, statutory regulators, coronial, or political (through statutory
commissions) respond; with the mantra being heard that this inquiry is to be held and that
recommendations will be made and acted upon, so that lessons will be learned and that such a
disastrous occurrence will not happen again.
If only that mantra were true in New Zealand.
And now a pause. Why am I, a roughhouse criminal trial lawyer (starting from over 60 years ago)
talking to you, the experts in H&S fields, about such matters? The connections one makes in life
sometimes result in unexpected consequences. And so it was when Andrew Little (now the newly
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