Australasian Mine Safety is the leading voice for all key decision makers within Mining company's and major contractors. Delivering the latest industry news as it breaks.
Issue link: http://ebook.aprs.com.au/i/29218
NATIONAL NEWS ATIONAL NEWS AngloGold says rains affect Australia mine output AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s third-largest gold producer, said heavy rains in Australia have affected output at its Sunrise Dam mine. The company said in a statement that while open pit mining has resumed, underground operations remained suspended for safety reasons. AngloGold said it expects that Sunrise Dam, located 56 kilometres south of Laverton in Western Australia, would achieve normal mining rates in the June Quarter. “AngloGold Ashanti is therefore expecting that first quarter guidance of 1.04 million ounces will be negatively impacted by approximately 20,000 ounces with a consequential impact on unit total cash costs,” the company said. Africa’s top gold miner, which has operations across four continents, also said the group’s full year production guidance of 4.55-4.75 million ounces remained unchanged. Source: Reuters 1000 Safety In Action visitors pack seminars Safety In Action visitors filled 450 seats to capacity and then lined the walls of a Melbourne Exhibition Centre hall to hear Barry Sherriff, partner of Norton Rose law firm, explain the implications of the new model Work Health and Safety Act. The hall was filled once again to hear from Safe Work Australia’s Julia Collins. The April 5 address was the first of three Sherriff, regarded as one of the architects of the model laws, presented at the Safety In Action and Melbourne Materials Handling trade shows during April. The lawyer headed a line-up of experts hosting seminars at Safety In Action that included Julia Collins of Safe Work Australia and Carol Bullivant of the Australian Industry Group. Sherriff told the audience it was “troubling there’s misinformation out there being peddled by people.” In particular, Sherriff said, middle managers could be assured they were not regarded as “officers” under the model Act, which is due for adoption around Australia from January 1 next year. “Officers are those who participate in making decisions affecting the whole, or a substantial part of, the organisation. Contrary to some of 6 AUSTRALASIAN MINE SAFETY JOURNAL the alarming statements being made, these are not decisions at the micro level.” On the other hand, Sherriff said middle managers had not escaped responsibility. “A word of caution: managers are workers too and have a duty of reasonable care to others.” Although the consistency brought by the new model Act has been applauded by businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions, Sherriff said this was not the most important outcome of the harmonisation process. “The model Work Health and Safety Act delivers much more than achieving homogeneity,” he said. “That will not be the biggest change across the country. Instead, it is about moving safety forwards.” It was time to update existing legislation based on the 40-year-old Robens report, he said. Work was no longer undertaken purely by employees but now involved a more complex set of relationships that included contractors, sub-contractors, labour-hire companies and even volunteers. “If you look in the model Act for the duties of an employer, it will be a fruitless task,” he said. “If you look in the model Act for the duties of an employee, it will be a fruitless task. Each of these will still have duties, but as part of broader classes of ‘business’ and ‘worker’. Workers are those who work in any capacity and who are influenced by the holder of the primary duty of care. We have not made fundamental changes to the legislative model but are bringing it up to date. We have made it clearer who owes a duty. No longer are your obligations determined by who you are but by what you do.” Sherriff did not accept suggestions from a Safety In Action audience member that the model Work Health Safety Act would necessarily impose greater costs on employers. “A lot of what we’ve done is to simplify and clarify things, to make the law better and remove the legal gobbledygook. People in the office, factory, the warehouse, or the road who need to understand the safety laws. It requires what you should now be doing anyway.” Source: Safety Institute of Australia Inc Industry welcomes new mines minister Queensland’s peak resources sector body has welcomed Stirling Hinchliffe’s appointment as the state’s new Minister for Employment, Skills and Mines. Chief Executive of the Queensland Resources Council, Michael Roche, said Hinchliffe has had extensive exposure to the mining and gas sectors and its issues through his former Infrastructure and Planning portfolio. The new mines minister will be responsible for the key pieces of regulation governing the mining and gas sectors, the Mineral Resources Act and the Petroleum and Gas Act. “We also see valuable synergies between his new skills and mining industry responsibilities given the worrying skills shortages confronting the resources sector, both in mining and gas,” said Roche. “Looking to the medium term, given that the state’s mining and energy sectors directly and indirectly contribute more than 20 per cent of the state’s output, and the synergies between the two sectors, we still believe that there is a strong case for a standalone mines and energy minister. “QRC will be making that case in the lead-up to the next election.” Source: QRC Union blasts miners on safety A union organiser has blasted Anglo Coal for “extremely” poor safety after operations at two Central Queensland mines were shut down due to two accidents within 24 hours. A dump truck and a ute collided at Dawson coal mine, Moura, on Friday [March 18]. At the Callide coal mine, near Biloela, a bulldozer was buried during excavation on Thursday night [March 17]. No one was injured in either accident. The Queensland Government’s chief inspector of coal mines, Gavin Taylor, said the department had suspended operations because of the mines “ineffective safety and health management systems”. He said both mines would remain suspended until management could satisfy inspectors that work could go ahead without unacceptable risk. Chris Gilbert, an organiser with the Construction, Forestry and Mining Union, said the systems Anglo Coal had in place for addressing hazards had not been working. Gilbert said half of their investigations into accidents blamed “operator error”.