Pike River

Mike Hosking’s “Who will stand up and say enough is enough” tilts his sword at those pesky families whose loved ones have been killed by foreign tourist drivers only to see those drivers get off with a brush of a wet bus ticket. Then there are the Pike River families who have been denied even that.

There is no statute of limitations on justice and if we deal with Pike River, 29 New Zealanders died and that mine may well be a crime scene. Can I make it any starker than that? More than six years on, the cause of 29 deaths remains unknown and that is a stain on the very concept of justice because we know where both the evidence and remains are.

From 1879 right up until Pike River, only two of the 430 people killed in mine accidents were never recovered. Is Hosking seriously saying that in 21st century New Zealand we cannot do what generations of Kiwis have successfully done? I for one am prepared to enter that mine, even if it is carrying water for the experts, but I won’t be holding my breath for Hosking to join me.

Then we turn to the families of people killed by foreign tourist drivers. In Hosking’s world such little people should go quietly for the tourism Mammon.

In Northland last year an American tourist killed two Northlanders and walked free after paying $24,200 and suffering an unenforceable 18-month disqualification from driving when he admitted he knew he had a brain tumour but got behind the wheel regardless.

New Zealand First has a bill before Parliament to deal with tourists. First, it introduces a greater duty of care on rental service licence holders, requiring them to be assured of a hirer’s competence to drive.

Second, it introduces a requirement that overseas licensed drivers will be limited to hiring vehicles equipped with safety assistance technologies. This could include technologies to stop cars from crossing the centreline.

Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First.