The families of the men killed in the Pike River explosion will gather on Monday to mark the eighth anniversary of the tragedy.
A service will be held for the 29 men who died in the West Coast mine at the Pike River Memorial, near Greymouth, on Monday afternoon.
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The eight-year anniversary comes after the Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-Entry, Andrew Little, announced the Government will go ahead with a plan to re-enter the mine.
Mr Little will be joining the families, and said he hopes the anniversary will be smoother with the prospect of re-entry.
"It's helpful I think in terms of making sure that the anniversary day, the 19th of November, goes smoothly for the families, that it's not something to be worried about," he said.
But National leader Simon Bridges told The AM Show Mr Little's plan is based on the same advice the National Government received.
"I remember very clearly... on their words, the advice of the officials, the engineers, the people who knew about gases and so on, that it was not safe to re-enter," he said.
Mr Bridges said the Labour-led Government was fulfilling its promise, but he stressed the re-entry should "be about safety, not politics".
He said he didn't believe the previous Government had any regrets.
"I think we did the single most important thing to honour those 29 men and their families, and that was have a royal commission, get an independent taskforce going on health and safety, and have the biggest health and safety changes across the board in history, and actually in the mining area," he said.
A "single entry" plan will be used, which means re-entering the mine through the existing drift design.
An additional $14 million had been approved for the plan, bringing to the total cost of the project to $36 million.
"This has been eight years in the making, and we fought really hard to get to where we are today," said Anna Osborne, the widow of miner Milton Osborne who died in the November 2010 explosion.
"We have the coalition Government to thank for that, as well as the very competent staff that the Pike River Recovery Agency have employed."
The re-entry is planned for February next year.
Newshub.
