Pike River Day X

Two significant things today.

We had explosion no 4. So on average an explosion every second day or so.

John Key has announced on Q+A that the Commission of Inquiry will be a Royal Commission. There is no real difference in powers (the legislation does not distinguish) and the “official” guidelines are that Royal Commissions in recent times have been for social policy inquiries. But the nice thing about being Prime Minister is you can decide to ignore things such as guidelines.

I suspect he was motivated by the fact Erebus was a Royal Commission, and not wanting this to be seen as inferior.

All eyes will be on the name of the Judge selected to chair it.