The Mining and Energy Union has urged safety authorities to look at accidents clustered around work activities on mine sites.

The death of a man on Oaky North mine near Tieri in Central Queensland yesterday was the fourth on a Queensland coal site this year, Mining and Energy Union general vice president Steve Smyth said.

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Various reports on safety in the sector made recommendations around training, experience and supervision, Mr Smyth said.

Workers continued to be put into high-risk roles and high-risk activities without both the appropriate competencies and appropriate supervision, he said.

“And the example of that in Queensland … we still haven’t considered what type of competencies we need for mechanical people.

“A lot of these events are related now, whether it’s slinging, lifting, towing, working around stored energy.  So, there is some work that can be done, but we just can’t be continuing to have these fatalities and have them be the trigger for us. 

“We need to do something differently because we can do something differently, but we just need the effort by all involved to get things moving.”

The industry proved it could address the incidence of injury in high risk areas, Mr Smyth said.

“If you look at a development panel, a longwall panel, we put a lot of effort into ensuring that we identify the hazards and control the risks in those areas,” he said. 

“We’re getting better at the day-to-day operations of our mines, ensuring people are competent, (that) they’re trained.

“We’ve got all the systems in place, same as in the open-cut with vehicle interaction. We still do have events, but we’re putting a lot of work into that. 

“What we’re not concentrating on is what people will say sometimes is a mundane type task or where a person’s slinging or lifting or where a person’s directed to go and work on some piece of equipment.”

“Tyre handling’s another one. We’re not putting the work in there … We’re not providing the right supervision, we’re putting people on tasks that don’t have the skillset or the knowledge to do it.” 

The industry was setting itself up for failure in some cases, he said.

“For instance, in the open-cut mine with production and even an underground mine, why would you put a person in as a superintendent, look after production if they’ve got electrical or a mechanical background?

“You should have someone that’s got the right competencies for mining and vice versa with maintenance electrical tasks … 

“There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing well. There’s a lot of stuff we’re not doing well and that’s tragically repeated over and over again at least four times this year in Queensland.” 

The industry regulator responsible for mine safety Resources Health and Safety Queensland declined the invitation to comment further.