Biennial Safety Reset for Qld resource sector workers

Resources workers throughout Queensland will mark National Safe Work Month by partaking in a biennial sector-wide Safety Reset. The Safety Reset will include workers in coal, minerals and quarrying along with the petroleum, gas and explosives industries. Previous Safety Resets have identified a range of barriers to safety in the workplace, including a fear of reprisal for speaking up, complicated reporting processes, poor communication, and inadequate site inductions and safety training.

Queensland held its inaugural Safety Reset in 2019, after a tragic year when six mine workers died in the workplace. Resources Minister Scott Stewart said Safety Resets provide an important opportunity for every worker to take stock and see what practices must be improved to ensure the workplace is safe.

“Safety in the resources industry is everyone’s responsibility. The most important thing to come out of any Queensland worksite at the end of the day is our workers. We need to remain vigilant, even when operations are running smoothly because complacency can lead to injury. We want people and workplaces to go back to basics which is why the focus of this year’s Safety Reset is to empower and support workers to recognise unsafe situations, stop work and report the issue, that is: SEE STOP REPORT,” Stewart said.

Resources Safety and Health Queensland CEO Mark Stone added that the Safety Reset program is vital to support a positive safety culture. “Everyone in the resources sector needs to know how to identify a hazard, and how to report it. Key to that is supporting a reporting culture so workers can identify risks and hazards without fear of reprisal,” Stone said.

Image credit: iStock.com/Martin Barraud