The Pike River black hole

Martin van Beynen writes:

One of the problems is the open-ended task of the Pike River Recovery Agency.
Getting under way in early 2018, the agency was initially funded at about $22 million for three years. Its allocated funding increased to $36m last year and to the end of June this year the agency has spent about $18m. It expects to spend another $12m up to June 30, 2020 but it’s a good bet its work won’t be done by then.

In seven months? Of course not.

The agency is no doubt staffed by dedicated and skilled people who want to complete their mission but at the moment they essentially have a blank cheque.
That’s why I think the decision to re-enter was ill-considered and driven partly by an emotional Labour Party tie to its roots with the miners of the West Coast. That’s all fine, but it should not have used taxpayer money to indulge its sentimentality.
A compensation payment to the Pike River families and a finite sum given to the West Coast in memory of the miners who died at Pike River would have been a more fitting and wiser use of the money.

For $40 million you could have given $1.25 million to each of the families. Would do far more good than reopening a tomb.