Little was national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union – which also represents NZ’s miners – when the Pike River disaster occurred in late 2010 and the former lawyer has closely followed the legal proceedings that followed.

Last week, the government defended its decision to drop long-running charges against Whittall by saying there was a low likelihood of landing a conviction based on the available evidence.

“I don’t accept their line that there wasn’t enough to go ahead,” Little told ILN.

“There has to have been because so much has been put into the public arena by the royal commission [into the disaster].”

From what he understood from conversations with “others”, Little said a key part of Whittall’s defence was going to be based on attacking the Department of Labour for its well-known failures as a regulator and mine inspector – with plenty of evidence on that front coming from the year-long royal commission.

“I can’t help but conclude that there is a political element to all of this,” Little said, because he believed the government aimed to avoid falling further under the spotlight from going to trial and having it play out in public.

Little outlined the most damning royal commission findings he thought could support a case against Whittall.

“The fact that the board of directors commissioned a health and safety audit – that audit threw up some very serious concerns that the board just then ignored,” he said.

“And then there was the evidence from the deputy’s daily reports about issues underground that were lodged in the system but nothing ever happened. They kept on pointing out health and safety problems underground and they were never acted on.”

The former union chief said he knew for a fact once the police and Department of Labour took over the company office after the first explosion, they found “hundreds” of these reports that were piled up “and apparently not even looked at”.

On what could happen next, Little feared it could be the end of the road unless the families of the victims were willing to mount some sort of private prosecution – which he also doubted would happen.

Like the outspoken family members, Little said he was pretty outraged that no person was ever going to be held accountable for the mining disaster that killed 29 men.