Safety figures show improving performance in NSW mining

The NSW Minerals Council reports that the latest mine safety figures for NSW show that the performance of the state’s minerals industry continues to improve.

Preliminary data for 2009-10 shows:

• Zero fatalities across the entire NSW minerals industry;
• Lost time injury frequency rates down for the third year running (13.2 in 06-07 to 6.92 in 09-10); and
• The number of serious injuries continued its decade-long downward trend (55 in 99-00 to 40 in 09-10).

Deputy CEO for the NSW Minerals Council Sue-Ern Tan said that, while there was still room for improvement, the results reinforced the industry’s world-class safety record.

“There is nothing more important than the health and wellbeing of our workforce. It will always be our number one priority,” she said. “It is pleasing to be able to report no fatalities in the past 12 months. It is also worth noting that our metals sector has been fatality free for three years and there hasn’t been a death at a metals-surface operation for 16 years. But we must continue to strive to do better.

“The minerals industry has a goal of zero harm. That is why it is important to recognise the tremendous work being done across the industry that will help us learn, improve our performance and achieve a world-leading OHS culture, which is the next frontier for a ‘step change’ in health and safety.”

The statistics were discussed at the recent NSW Minerals Council’s annual OHS forum in Dubbo, where around 100 miners and health and safety professionals from across the state’s west heard from speakers about communicating safety.

The forum, with the theme Communicating Safety: Cracking the Code, focussed the industry on how it talks about risks, controls, consultation, how leaders get their message out, how employees express their views and how to improve the industry’s safety culture.

“A big part of these forums is telling the story about mining and our OHS innovations,” Tan added. “Our annual awards are so successful that we have created a new category specifically for the metals sector at the Dubbo forum to highlight the advances being made at mines across the state’s west.”