Legends of Queensland mining

How do you define a legendary miner? It’s one who’s not only been there and done that, but more. They are the industry’s master craftsmen, Regimental Sergeant Majors, accountants and coaches. The definition of a legendary miner is one who can make sure no-one gets hurt and everyone gets home for dinner with the family. They invisibly influence operations, set standards and get results by way of example. Dave Hunter - Head of Raisebore Group Raisebore Group general manager Dave Hunter is the first we’re reviewing in a series of mining legends. First of all, he hates the idea of publicity …. and says so in a way, as anyone who knows him knows, is blunt. Dave Hunter grew up on the site of Queensland’s only uranium mine where his father was a miner. Mary Kathleen is located just north of the Camooweal Highway between Mount isa and Cloncurry. Dave’s first job was at Gunpowder Mine, the now Capricorn Copper, 33 years ago. He’s spent more time underground since then than the devil. iQ caught up with him at the recent Underground Operators Conference in Brisbane. How has it changed, underground mining, in that time? DH: Oh, it's changed a lot. I mean definitely the cultures underground have changed from when I started, technology, safety. Fundamentally we still do the same things, we were only talking about this yesterday. While we've got all this great new technology and stuff, we still bore charge, fire, muck and truck. The methodology's still the same, we still do the same things. There's been lots of changes, safety's the biggest one. Someone delivered a paper yesterday about safety and the biggest, highest levels of compliance companies in the industries have the greatest amounts of fatalities. So are they making it any safer? I don't know, I don't think so, it doesn't look like it statistically. Could be the environment? DH: I think people manage safety for lots of different reasons. Some people have an inherent value that they don't want someone to get injured when they go to work. Other people manage safety for ticking the box of compliance. What have we left behind? What was happening 20 years ago that should still be a part of the process today? DH: Training. We don't train. There's constantly been a skill shortage, but it's never been as great as what it is now. Whether it's tradesman, engineers or just hands-on training miners, we are not training enough people. Simple as that. When I started mining, training wasn't as formal or documented or regimented as what it is today, but you still did training. You did old school mentor training, young green people were sent with an old miner and that old miner never let go of your hand until he was comfortable that you could go about your daily activities in the mine without hurting yourself or anyone else, that was training, and it was structured, it just wasn't formal. But we just don't train people enough anymore and again, a bit like safety, we train people to tick the box of compliance that we have a responsibility ensure everyone's trained. So we tick that box of compliance, but are we training? I remember when places like Mount Isa used to employ 200 apprentices every year, year in, year out, and we don't do that on that scale anywhere anymore. Maroon tragic - Dave Hunter lives in Orange NSW. This is his licence plate Yet they would argue that it's done at TAFE in Western Brisbane sort of thing. DH: Yeah, fantastic. But like the mining companies, like Mount Isa and Broken Hill that had their own mining schools, there's none of that anymore. Is software filling the gap at all? DH: I don't think so, not from where I sit. Software can't train people. How many people do you have on staff? DH: Our total group of employees is about 180. And how do you go about your training and your compliance and everything? Is it different? DH: I've adopted a little bit of the old school mentality of competency-based training, so I don't care what your resume or something says, all of our training set up to be you've got to demonstrate your level of competence to me practically, and then we'll deem you competent, so really competence-based training. You've mentioned training, what are two other things you'd change to ensure the future of the industry? DH: We've got to stop hurting people, so we've got to do something about safety. Unfortunately, we're still hurting people in the mining industry, but I think our approach to safety has to go back to basics as well. Ticking the box of compliance, having people spend seven days doing an induction doesn't make them safe underground. And giving them a hundred procedures that you can't read, understand or retain the knowledge of, doesn't make them safe underground. We've almost taken the ability away for people to think for themselves and look after themselves underground because we give them such a prescriptive environment for them to work in. I think we've got to go back to putting the responsibility on you with the employee to look after yourself, instead of me telling you how to walk a straight line, you should have enough knowledge and experience to know how to walk a straight line and that'll keep you safe. Are they (young miners) asking you enough questions? DH: I think so. I was just talking to a young engineer outside a minute ago, I was excited talking, I couldn't get away from him, I was that excited to stay and keep talking to him. He's about 25 years old, but he had that broad of range of understanding of every aspect of what he was doing in his job it amazed me, and I was excited to talk to him. And kids like him will become our mine managers and general managers and being on boards of mining companies in the future. I think we've got to continually make it an attractive place to get intelligent people like him in our industry, so we've got somewhere to go and that's the challenge. We've gone to even-time rosters, it is a lot more family friendly. We've got to keep training people, we've got to stop hurting people. People have got to be able to go home at the end of the shift. And if that attracts the smart, intelligent people to our industry, it puts us in a good place, because we don't need more people like me.

Legends of Queensland mining

Industry Queensland

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