Mining safety complaints to the mining safety regulator have risen substantially in Queensland according to the Minister responsible for Mining Safety, Dr Anthony Lynham.
Dr Lynham said today that the State has recorded 134 confidential complaints since the introduction of statewide safety resets in July and August 2019. This figure has increased from 104 for the financial year 2018-19.
“The increase in confidential complaints shows the safety resets are working by encouraging mine and quarry workers to report anything they feel is a potential safety risk,” Dr Lynham said.
While increases are seen in all three sectors, coal, mineral mines and quarries, the largest increase is seen in coal – especially in matters related to mine worker safety and health.
For the 2019-20 financial year, the Mines Inspectorate has conducted 1015 inspections with 215 of those being unannounced inspections. The Inspectorate has also conducted 76 audits.
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According to Minister Lynham, each mining safety complaint received by the safety regulator requires, on average, five inspector-days to investigate and resolve.
The mining safety regulator has also accepted and committed to implementing each of the four recommendations it has received in the Brady Report.
These include:
- adopting the serious accident frequency rate as a measure of safety in the industry;
- adopting the high potential incident frequency rate as a measure of reporting culture in the industry;
- establishing a specialist, dedicated data analytics unit, whose sole purpose will be to collate, categorise, actively search and identify concerning trends in incident data for the industry;
- develop a new and greatly simplified incident reporting system.
Dr Lynham acknowledged the mining industry, unions and workers commitment to the recommendations outlined in the Brady report.
“Queensland now has the toughest mining laws in the planet, and there is more to come,” he said.
“We have listened, we enacted the safety reset and we have actioned changes.
“At the end of the day, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our 53,000 mine and quarry workers Dr Lynham said.
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