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October 17, 2025 15 mins

It has been almost 15 years since the Pike River mining disaster in which 29 men lost their lives.  

A new film tells the true story of the tragedy and its aftermath through the eyes of Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse - 2 women at the forefront of the fight for justice. 

In the disaster, Anna lost her husband Milton. Sonya lost her son Ben, while another of her sons, Daniel, was one of just two survivors. 

The pair joined Jack Tame this morning to discuss the disaster and the film's release. 

Pike River will be in cinemas from the 30th of October 2025.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at Me.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's been almost fifteen years since the Pike River mining disaster,
in which twenty nine men lost their lives. A new film,
Pike River, tells the true story of the tragedy and
its aftermath through the eyes of Anna Osborne and Sonya
rock House, two women at the forefront of the fight
for justice.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
A decision has been made that this prosecution is not
going to proceed.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
And mind will be permanently sealed. That's the reality.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
No one is going to go on the earth again.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So what are you going to do?

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Where are going to stop them?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Anna lost her husband Milton in Pike River. Sonya lost
her son Ben, while one of her other sons, Daniel,
was one of just two survivors Pik River. The film
has just had its week of premieres around New Zealand,
and Anna Osborne and Sonya rock House are with us
in studio. O'kyilda, Good morning, morning, good morning. It's so
good to see you both, and I know you have

(01:08):
had a crazy week, so we really appreciate you being here.
Before I asked too much about the film, can I
ask about the process. How does this kind of thing happen.
How does someone like Rob Saky's come to the community
and say, you know what, I think, I want to
tell your story. Anna.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah, he actually wasn't. He had his eye on Pike River,
but he wasn't too interested in making a film as yet.
But as time progressed and he saw two women that
were actually trying to bring about truth and justice, he thought, well,
actually there could be a movie in this, And so

(01:51):
he waited and watched for quite a while, and then
he approached us as well as a few other film companies,
and was interested in making a movie about us. And
we were thinking, what the heck? Why so I would
someone want to make a movie about two middle aged
women who nothing flash and nothing fense, and we're trying

(02:17):
to you know, we were trying to do what was
right for our loved ones and the twenty you know,
the other twenty seven men that were underground. So it
was surreal thinking that anyone would want to make a
movie about us.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Was it a difficult balance? Because I can imagine from
your perspective, given everything you've experienced over the last fifteen years,
a lot of people in your shoes would find it
hard to trust people, and you have to go to
someone like Rob and put an incredible amount of trust
in him to tell your story. How did you feel
about this on you, Well.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I kind of feel like he's the sort of person
that when you meet him, I trust my instinct most
of the time, and I just felt I just felt
safe with him and Fiona two. And you can tell
when somebody is interested in what you're saying. And we've

(03:12):
had plenty of people that, you know, give us lip
service but aren't actually listening. But he was listening, and
he asked a lot of questions, and he spent a
lot of time with us. And one of the big
frustrations for Anna and I was that nobody wanted to listen.
Everyone had pike fatigue. They were sick of it, and
they didn't want to listen to what we had to

(03:33):
say because it went against the grain. And you know,
as he was, we know that, you know, we're pretty
we are pretty conservative people, you know, most of the time,
and so we don't like to rock the boat. And
we were rocking the boat, and you know, people got
annoyed by that. So to have somebody like Rob and

(03:57):
Fiona just wanting us to spill everything that we were
feeling and thinking. It was so liberating because we felt
like finally we were taking control, you know, because for
years we just had to sit there and be told
what we were being told, and we knew that it

(04:20):
wasn't right, but there was nothing we could do about it.
We were told to be to be, to be right,
and to be dignified because otherwise the government might, you know,
walk away, And I actually believed that in the beginning,
and then I thought later on, you know, that's just rubbish.
They're never going to do that, and so yeah, he

(04:41):
just he just sort of built that trust up. It
didn't happen immediately, of course, but we could see that
he genuinely wanted to tell our story and so yeah,
that's why we went with him.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
So no doubt you immediately pushed for say over the cast.
You said, right, we want Gwyneth Peltrow, and we want.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
We had a lot of fun coming up with all
different names that we thought each one should. Never in
my wildest dreams could I ever have imagined that Robin
Malcolm would be playing me. In fact, when Rob rang
me up and said that Robin was going to be
playing me. I was gobsmacked. I couldn't speak. And then

(05:27):
I said, no, why she cannot play me? And he
said why and I said, because she is gorgeous, like
she's like an eighth my size, and you know, and
she just she's just so I mean, yeah, I mean,
My Outrageous Fortune was just one of my favorite shows.
And I you know who doesn't love Robin Malcolm. So

(05:48):
I I still can't believe it when I look at
her and she looks at us with the same ore
that we look at her, and it's just the weirdest thing.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I thought they did an amazing job. I thought Melanie
and Robin did an incredible job. So you guys have
seen the film a few times now. You've had a
series of premiers, kind of like a touring series of
premier years. This week, can you tell me about being
in Graymouth in it for the first time and seeing
the film for the first time.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
It was quite overwhelming, a lot of emotion because you
were there with all the families.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Right, this is a private private screening.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Talking about the one before we ye family viewing and yeah,
so that was viewed by about forty family members and
the response from the families was an overwhelming well done, ladies,
because they did not know exactly what Sonya and I

(06:48):
had been doing behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
I would send out emails to the families and say, well, listen,
this is what we're trying to do now, or this
is what has been suggested or whatever in the families
for email back and say yep, we support you, thank
you so much, and that was about it. But for
son and I, we actually got off our bombs and
we did the hard yards behind the scenes, and the

(07:12):
film sort of validates everything we.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Have done because, for want of a better term, you
guys have been agitators, and I mean that in a
good way. You're laughing so on your but you know
what I mean, Like, you guys have been fighting, and
for much of that fight, you have gone through all
of these different processes thinking that that work would be unseen,
you know. And in a way, this is like the

(07:37):
amazing thing about the film. For the first time, not
just the other families, but the world gets to get so.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
We hope that people I've been asked many times, what
do I hope that people take away from the movie,
And one of the things that I hope for is
that people get an understanding of what the families have
been through and had to go through. I mean, when
you think about it, logically, we should never have had
to fight to get what we've known. This was not

(08:05):
our fault, was not our men's fault, and so the
fact that we even had to do it is just
the most terrible thing. But yeah, I'd like people to
take away that message, plus the message that about if
anybody else is in a position where they see things

(08:27):
in the workplace that are not right, you need to
speak up. Don't be afraid to speak up because you know,
health and safety is so important, and our health and
safety rate in New Zealand is abysmal and it's one
of the worst in the Western world. And why why

(08:48):
is that? You know? So, yeah, that's what I hope
that people take away from it.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
So it was amazing to me because Rob said to me,
make sure when I watch it, I have headphones in,
headphones on so I can really immerse myself in the sound.
And it was really incredible from the first couple of
frames of the film, beautiful but also haunting. It kind
of transferred me back from my experience and of course

(09:14):
my experience is nothing like your experiences. But I wondered,
having seen the film a few times now, are you
seeing different things in it? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Absolutely, I mean I think I've seen it about six times.
There was one where with the music, the orchestra hadn't
finished doing the sound for it yet, so we went
through a movie without sound, which was really quite weird
because you know, you don't usually have that opportunity. But

(09:46):
we have watched it and each time we come away
from seeing it, we turn around and we say, can
you remember that actually happening? Or I can't remember seeing
that the first time we saw the movie, And it's
just it's really bizarre, really, isn't it, because we just yeah,
we keep seeing different things, and yeah, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
We were there during the filming, so you know, we
were seeing these scenes being played out. But then when
you watch it, it's there is an a seed every
time there's something that I think, oh, I don't remember
seeing that last time that.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
We are really proud of what we see on the
screen and realized, you know, we two ordinary women could
actually change so many things in New Zealand, like laws,
health and safety, even the government. You know, if the

(10:42):
government was going to change. We wanted everyone to support Pike,
you know, stand with Pike, and we did that. We
got a commitment from all the other parties that are
the minor parties apart from ACT and of course National,
all the other parties at the time signed this agreement
that if Labor got in, they would support Pike River

(11:05):
and you know, they would perform in.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
The re a safe entry.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
That's right. They create an agency within one hundred days,
and that's what happened. And it's the first time we've
been listened to.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I feel it must be so gratifying to go to
fight and fight and fight and then see, even if
it's a tiny shred, but see a little bit of progress.
So you talked down before about the family screening in Graymouth,
but very quickly tell me about the glitzy screaming of
the last few days, because you've had a couple of
big premieres.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Now I'll just talk about the Graymouth. Talk about the auklad.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
That when I think glitzy, I think Graymouth. We all do.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah, Graymouth had not seen a film in the big
cinema there for fifteen years, believe it or not. So
it was a huge thing for Graymouth to have this
movie come to town, and they had. They went all out.
You know, you should have seen the red carpet and
the plants and that they decked it all out to
something wonderful. And the community support and the community spirit.

(12:08):
You could feel it in the room, seeing the people
that were with us in the picket line, you know,
and Patient bringing us food. All these people you could
see them in the audience there, and I just thought,
I'm so proud to be able to bring this movie
to Graymouth for the premiere and to say thank you
because Graymouth was a community that really did support and

(12:31):
embrace the twenty nine families. I've felt the love the
adel her in the room and that it was beautiful.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
It was.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
I don't want to give too much away, but I
think it's fair to say the film ends, but the
Pike story doesn't, right, And I just wondered if there
is when you think about the progress or lack thereof
when it comes to prosecutions relating to Pike, is there
one last push that you hope this film will give

(13:05):
powerful people.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Absolutely, we are hoping that the powers that be that
make the important decisions will a go and see the movie,
because how can you make such important decisions about people
that you've never even met. It really irritates me that

(13:31):
the people who will be making the important decisions know
nothing about us, haven't met us, haven't talked to us,
heard our side of the story. So I'm hoping that
the movie will highlight a whole pile of things and
make them perhaps think about what their decision might be.

(13:53):
But at the same time, they also need to understand
that if the right decision doesn't come back, we are
done yet.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
We'll put on our big deal pants and we'll do
it for a yet, because we need justice for our men.
Twenty nine men don't go to work and they were killed.
They didn't die, they were killed at work. This was
a totally avoidable accident, and so that's disgusting that no
one has been charged over that yet. And we need

(14:24):
justice for our men, for the families, for New Zealand,
for the world. Basically, so if the right decision does
not come we will start kicking up Holy hell again.
And that's a promise I make.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Doubt you for a moment. Thank you for your courage
and your work and for your story and for sharing
your story. Thank you so much, guy.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
That's Anna Osborne and so on your rockas they are
the inspiration for Pike River. We've got all the details
about the film and you can see it around the country.
Up on the News Talks dB website.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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