The Pike River Family Reference Group, which represents families of 27 Pike River Men, have met with the families they represent to discuss the final stages of the drift recovery project.

The Minister for Pike River Recovery, and the Agency’s CEO and Mine Manager were invited to speak to family members before the meeting went into a closed session to allow family members to deliberate.

The following statement was written by families and agreed to in the meeting.

“Families accept advice that going further would be a major, expensive engineering project, with complex potential safety risks, and it would be difficult to convince WorkSafe to give further exemption to mining licence.

Families accept, with heartbreak, Andrew Little's advice that there will be no more government money to expand the project at this time.

Families welcome advice that Police with support of the Agency, will drill additional boreholes to further their investigation of events underground that help them understand the disaster.

Families remain hopeful that ongoing police investigation will continue to uncover important evidence, and if this happens, and further work would help achieve truth and justice, we will push further for it.

In order to honour our men and leave a legacy the families want the deaths of our men to continue to make New Zealanders safer. We will work with the Public Service Commission and other agencies to further this goal.

The families wish to acknowledge the ongoing support of the people of New Zealand and the international community.”

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