QLD Mining Industry Set for New Independent Regulator
Queensland Parliament has approved an independent health and safety regulator for the state's 66,000 resources workers starting July 2020.
Queensland’s 66,000 resources workers will soon have their own independent health and safety regulator after Parliament threw its support behind the move this week.
The new regulator, Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ), is a product of the Resources Safety and Health Queensland Bill 2019 and will become operational on 1 July 2020.
Queensland’s mining industry has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. Two independent health and safety reviews into QLD mines and quarries began after the state recorded its sixth fatality in a 12 month period last year (see related article).
Mines Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said the state’s resources workers could now rely on an organisation with one job – keeping them safe at work.
“The new Resources Safety and Health Queensland will be 100 per cent focussed on workers.”
“It will be totally separate from the government’s broader function of growing and facilitating mining and exploration projects and the resources sector as a whole.”
The RSHQ will regulate the safety and health of the state’s minerals, coal, petroleum and gas, quarry, small scale mining and explosives workers. It will comprise:
- almost 90 inspectors of coal mines, mineral mines and quarries, explosives and petroleum and gas
- Queensland’s Safety in Mines Testing and Research Station, Simtars, and
- the Coal Mine Workers’ Health Scheme.
Dr Lynham noted that the establishment of the new regulator was the latest in the Government’s suite of sweeping mine safety and health reforms.
Those reforms include:
- legislation currently before the House creating the offence of industrial manslaughter, bringing resources workplaces in line with all other Queensland workplaces.
- better detection and prevention of black lung, and an improved safety net for affected workers.
- increased maximum penalties for offences to $4 million and powers for the regulator to issue fines without going to court.
- statewide safety reset sessions for mine and quarry workers to refocus on health and safety.
- $35 million to deliver reforms to improve the safety and health of mine workers.
- a commitment to tighter controls on mine dust levels.
- extra mines inspectors.
