Safety reset: Queensland mining under review

Following the death of a coalmine worker in Queensland in July 2019, the state government announced two independent reviews and a mining ‘safety reset’. National Safety’s Editor, Dr JOSEPH BRENNAN, speaks with the University of Queensland’s Brett Garland about one of these reviews, and provides an overview of some of the state’s other initiatives.

In early July 2019, the death of a Queensland coalmine worker at Baralaba, together with another serious incident at Collinsville, prompted the state’s Minister for National Resources, Mines and Energy, Dr Anthony Lynham, to initiate a statewide safety reset. “I am extremely distressed and concerned that there has been six mining and quarry worker deaths in the last 12 months,” the Minister said in a statement released on 7 July, the same day the miner died. “I will be making it absolutely clear that this situation is unacceptable and requires action.” And sure enough, the next day, two independent reviews were announced. The intention of which, according to the Minister, were to “identify changes needed to improve health and safety in the state’s mines and quarries”.

To conduct the reviews, a forensic structural engineer — Dr Sean Brady — and a team from the University of Queensland’s (UQ’s) Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC) were enlisted. For the first review, Dr Brady was tasked with examining “all fatal incidents in Queensland mines and quarries since 2000”. Initially this review was confined to coalmine incidents to the end of 2018, but was later extended to, according to the Minister, “now include mineral mine and quarry incidents, and all fatal incidents” in 2019. In summary, the ‘Brady review’, as defined by the Minister, would “look at why mine workers have died over the past 20 years; how industry can improve and how the mines inspectorate can work better”.

Separately, the Minister announced that “the University of Queensland is reviewing the state’s mining health and safety legislation to ensure it is relevant to current and emerging mine practice and technology”. I caught up with MISHC Director Brett Garland to better understand the nature and scope of their review (the ‘UQ review’), why MISHC is qualified to undertake this review and the functions of the centre itself, including its role in improving safety in Queensland’s mines and quarries.

The UQ review

Established in 1998, UQ’s “MISHC has played a critical role in reviewing, developing and implementing Queensland mining legislation over the past 21 years,” Garland told me. He believes “UQ was contracted due to the level of expertise present in its faculties and institutes and the outstanding work completed due to that expertise. Our in-house capabilities are the culmination of research and industry experience and uniquely positions us to independently carry out reviews of legislation and analyse its performance.” Regarding the particulars of the UQ review, Garland explains that there are two parts. “The first part of this review looked at Coal Mining Safety & Health Legislation, not the overall Workplace Health & Safety Act, and has already been submitted,” he said in October 2019.

“The second part will involve a review of the Qld Mining & Quarrying Safety & Health Act.” At the time of our discussion, Garland anticipated that this second part would be completed and submitted to the government by early December 2019. “Change management is a critical part of this legislation,” Garland noted regarding the value of reviewing and revising legislation. “The people who wrote it knew the industry practices and technology would change.” And regarding the significance of their review, Garland said: “Standards established in Australian mines through state-based legislation are held in high esteem internationally, which places Queensland at the forefront of conversations on mining — but that does not diminish the lives that have been lost at Queensland mines over the past year.

“The [UQ] review corroborates MISHC’s ultimate goal, which is contributing to improvements on mine sites, particularly in the areas of human factors in safety and safety and health diagnostics,” Garland concluded. The UQ review, together with the Brady review, were, at time of writing, expected to be completed by the end of 2019 and due to be tabled in parliament. These reviews form just two aspects of Queensland’s resolve — since July 2019 — to enact a safety reset across the sector. I will outline briefly the other aspects of Queensland’s mining safety reset.

‘In’ the ground reforms

The news of a fatality at Baralaba and an injury at Collinsville in early July attracted significant media coverage, and led the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union’s (CMFEU’s) Mining & Energy Division Queensland President, Stephen Smyth, to declare a “safety crisis in the Queensland mining industry”. But from the tragedy, and those that had preceded it, sprung a number of initiatives in the latter half of 2019, as the Queensland Government maintained its commitment to implementing a statewide safety reset.

Throughout July and August 2019, such initiatives included: 50,000 Queensland mine and quarry workers taking part in 1115 ‘reset sessions’ across more than 219 sites, and the recruitment of three more mines inspectors and a chief inspector of coalmining as part of the safety response. Then in September 2019, the state government announced that an independent safety and health regulator statutory body, Resources Safety and Health Queensland, would be established; and on the eve of the state’s memorial day for mine victims, also announced that, by the end of 2019, Queensland would match the latest recommended occupational exposure limit for respirable coal dust released by Safe Work Australia.

In the safety world it is not always possible to observe tangible change following a sequence of tragic events. But, on balance, it would seem that the death of 27-year-old Jack Gerdes at the Baralaba North Coal Mine after 1.30 am on Sunday, 7 July 2019 did serve as a watershed moment for the state. And this event, as tragic as it was, has led to some positive action in making Queensland’s mines and quarries safer. And initiatives, such as the UQ review, seem poised to bring about lasting reforms and further change into 2020. Reforms that, as is the case with all safety legislation, are set out to safeguard Australian workers and help ensure that, whatever your workplace, whatever the situations of your ‘shift’, we all return home safely at the end of our work day.

Dr Joseph Brennan is Editor of National Safety.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Michael Evans