"Safeguarding" the future for mining industry workers and their families was the key message of the New Zealand branch chairman's address to the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy's annual conference in Auckland yesterday.
Chairman Cam Wylie struggled for composure when he opened the second day of the conference.
"Frankly, I'm struggling with what to say. The tragedy of the week is so raw," Mr Wylie told about 200 delegates yesterday.
"These are our people at Pike," he said, calling for a minute's silence from the delegates at the University of Auckland's business studies centre.
There had been no formal update to delegates during the conference on Wednesday afternoon, as organisers awaited the outcome of the unfolding tragedy.
In offering condolences to the "suffering and deeply affected" families and friends within the close-knit Greymouth community, he said he believed the Pike River miners would have wanted the conference to continue "in the ideals of professionalism".
It would continue out of loyalty to the 29 miners, he said.
"They will want us to help safeguard their industry and community," Mr Wylie said.
In an interview after the presentation, Mr Wylie said if there was a public "backlash" over the deaths at the Pike River mine it would not come from people who lived in mining communities but from "middle New Zealand", which he described as the "Auckland-urban SUV set".
"The industry has always found it hard to work to gain social acceptance," he said.
Earlier, in speaking to delegates, Mr Wylie called for a stop to the "brain drain" and "insidious export" of young New Zealand graduates to work overseas, stressing the mining sector's productivity, export earnings and use of high technology in training, which all contributed to a "cornerstone of the economy" - worth about $2 billion annually.
• Simon Hartley is a guest of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy at the conference.
