A senior Queensland mining professional says supervisory competence and cumbersome safety and health management system processes are compromising safety on mine sites.

There have been four deaths on coal mines in Queensland this calendar year. 

Fifty-one-year-old worker Frank Thomas died last week on Oaky Creek mine while undertaking a mechanical role. Another man was taken to Rockhampton Hospital with serious injuries.

The system needed to be better managed to start with, auditor, consultant and site senior executive Scott Graham said.

“We’ve really got to take the competence of supervisors very seriously and we have to know that not all hazards will kill people, so we need to concentrate on those that do,” he said.

“We have a lot of systems out there that are just trying to do everything for everybody, and for everything. A lot of the times we think everything is important, and that means nothing is important. We have to get to that point of looking at what is critical. 

“If we can do that and come up with the right controls for those critical few and home in on that and, on top of that, have experienced and competent supervisors for that high-risk work, I think we’ll go a long way to preventing fatalities.”

A complicated induction was also a part of the problem, Mr Graham said.

“If I use an example when I did an audit last year and I spoke to a young fellow who was in a support role as a health and safety advisor. He had to do 76 different assessments for his induction, which is unbelievable.

“We need to ask ourselves, how much do people remember out of doing all of that in an induction? It’s almost nothing. 

“If we look at what an operational person has to go through, someone who’s an electrician, a maintainer, anyone who is operating equipment, they’ll probably be doing a lot more in their induction.”

Less was more when building an effective system, Mr Graham said.

“A lot of times these SOPs (standard operating procedures) and documents that are written, they’re almost like it’s a training package.

“If we are getting the right people on board with the right experience, then we don’t need to make it a training package. We just need to tell people what they can do and can’t do. And just get down to the  very basic rules. 

“If there’s other documentation that needs to be had for people to support frontline people, then that can be different. But we don’t need to put everything in front of a coal mine worker because they just won’t remember everything. 

“I think we need to simplify and ‘simplify’ doesn’t mean make it any less safe. I think if we simplify, we’ll go a long way to making it more safe.”

The regulator Resources Safety and Health Queensland has declined to comment. Minister Scott Stewart’s office has been invited to comment.

See below for an earlier report on the Oaky Creek accident: