An urgent meeting (Safety Summit) was held recently between mining bosses, unions and the Queensland Government after the latest fatality at the Baralaba coal mine.
The discussions produced a number of outcomes that may have raised some further questions.
At the Safety Summit Mines Minister Anthony Lynham said the Government was considering whether to expand industrial manslaughter provisions to cover mine workers.
Will expanding industrial manslaughter provisions to cover mine workers address safety performance in Qld. Coal Mines or it will drive accurate reporting of incidents away from the root cause then causing the real issues to go un-addressed?
Also, at the Safety Summit, Ian Macfarlane from the Queensland Resources Council stated that he believes that the industry already has very stringent legislation.
Does it matter how stringent the legislation is if the industry participants are not adhering to it?
From the Safety Summit it was declared that there would be a “safety reset” by the end of August.
Queensland Safety Officers distributed a package of information to mine sites under the reset plan. The package to be discussed with workers during safety sessions, which will include input from company executives.
It was declared that the “safety reset” would also essentially mean safety training for all mine workers. The legislation already has very stringent requirements for training of the Coal Mine Worker.
Once again, however does it matter how stringent the legislation is if the requirements are not being met?
After the Safety Summit Anthony Lynham, announced two expert independent reviews to identify changes needed to improve health and safety in the state’s mines and quarries.
One of them was an “Independent review of fatal incidents since 2000”.
The information package that was distributed to mine sites included a statistic stating that there has been 1028 HPIs in the industry in the last six months.
Maybe these HPIs should be re-visited as well?
Last week Anthony Lynham stated that so far less than fifty percent of mines in Qld had completed the Safety Reset & that any that hadn’t by the end of August would be “named & shamed”.
Maybe it should be questioned as to why less than fifty percent had participated?
