UPDATE
In breaking news the Prime Minister of New Zealand makes a shocking announcement
“There is “no question” that quarries need tighter health and safety regulation, Mr Key said today.”
THIS is why he is PM people, his mental acuity, his insight, his ability to see things before they happen! 11 June 2015
From the “You couldn’t make this up” file
Yesterday the PM said this about workplace safety (without any sense of urgency in his voice)
…there isn’t a particular caucus member or a particular small group of people that are driving this,” though he did not mention Collins by name.
There was wide-ranging feedback from the community about the bill, which was drafted to tighten workplace health and safety law in response to reports into the Pike River disaster.
Key said the Government wanted to ensure the law improved health and safety in the workplace, but did not want to make it too hard or expensive to follow. ..
But he ducked a question about whether the Government would send new amendments to the select committee to consider before its new report-back date in July.
Then, later in the day when a worker was buried beneath a slip in a quarry (the 3rd industry death in 2 months) in Christchurch, presumed dead, the Prime Minister of New Zealand reportedly
… has signalled tighter safety measures after a man was buried in a Canterbury quarry slip – likely the industry’s third fatal accident in two months. ”
First, a toddler may have died in part because of the appalling living conditions of the home of which the Landlord was New Zealanders, the Prime Minister if you like. Despite years of people pointing out such deficiencies in the housing stock it took a widely reported death of a toddler to get the Government to act.
Second, a worker died in a quarry accident.
This government is running NZ like an Insurance company, based on actuarial analysis and cost/benefit analysis and return to shareholders (in NZ’s case for shareholders read those with businesses benefiting from National Party policy and vice versa)
Deaths, or illness or hardship are just numbers in a column. How many deaths before the balance tips?
We are watching the death of the social responsibility of a Government to its people. It may already be over.
UPDATE: courtesy of Charles
“Hmm, do I want to die right now by doing this dangerous thing in an unsafe workplace, even though I’m on a ninety-day trial and don’t want to get fired as a result of refusing to die that would tickle the control fantasies of my boss, and the best I can look forward to at home is that the kids are at an age that they are really doing my head in… or do I want to die in fifteen years from the health issues associated with my existing government-owned leaky mould-ridden home? Hmmm. I suspose there is time for beer if i stay alive. Ok, I choose die later on.” Time elasped… 15 seconds. Brain cells used… One.
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