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
INTERVIEW NDUSTRY Q&A In this issue we speak with New Zealand mine safety expert Dave Feickert. Is New Zealand Government safety and/ or training legislation up to scratch? You have referred to the ‘safety triangle’ – what is that? In New Zealand the safety supervision system in mines is seriously inadequate. This had been known for some time before the Pike River tragedy and nothing was done to correct it. Our mine safety legislation and approach came originally from Britain, as did Australia’s. This model is based on the ‘safety triangle’ or three-legged stool, developed after 150 years of mine disasters in the United Kingdom – where over 100,000 miners have been killed at work since records were first kept in 1850. In it, the miners are kept safe inside the law-based triangle of mine manager at the apex, independent government inspector on one side and worker safety inspector, elected by the men, on the other. Behind each of these three points of the triangle stand the specialist managers and deputies, with the manager; a team of inspectors, headed by a chief inspector behind the mines inspector and behind the worker inspector, his trade union and union mining engineers. In the European Union (and in the UK as a member state) and Australia they have added modern risk assessment techniques. Everyone in the mine is trained in this, especially the key actors, and takes part on a shift by shift basis. It is bottom up as well as top down. It happens day in and day out. In the late 1990s, New Zealand governments abolished the highly professional mines inspectorate and also the mine level worker safety inspector, known as the check inspector, removing two legs of the stool. As recently as 1997/98, there were 17 highly experienced technical staff in the Mining Inspection Group of the Ministry of Commerce. Today there are only two Occupational Safety and Health Inspectors plus one adviser in the Department of Labour covering coal mines. There is only one inspector covering the country’s oil and gas rigs. The New Zealand check inspector at mine level was the same as the Australian check inspector and derived from the UK workmen’s inspector, a role that dates back to 1879. This role was replaced by the weaker one of safety 10 AUSTRALASIAN MINE SAFETY JOURNAL representative, under the framework law on Health, Safety and Employment which made the positive step of introducing these into workplaces generally. In the UK, when safety representatives were introduced into British workplaces, they were additional to workmen’s inspectors. The critical aspect of the safety triangle is the functioning, daily relationship between the three main actors. This is supported by simple ground rules. For example, in the UK the workmen’s inspector’s statutory inspection report is sent to the mines inspector as well as the manager. Managers see the workmen’s inspectors as an essential part of a successful safety and health system of cross-checks and balances operated by highly experienced people. Regarding the government mines inspector I am unaware of any other country which has done what New Zealand has done. In China, the government is introducing the safety triangle system and strengthening the roles of the three main actors. Despite constant pleas to re-instate both the mines inspectorate and the check inspector, no New Zealand government has done so. Consequently, the Pike River three-legged stool had only one leg to stand on. The simple fact is one or two mine managers cannot run a modern coal mine by themselves and guarantee the men’s safety. It is essential to have a professional inspectorate of men experienced as mine managers to guide companies in problem- solving on a regular basis, not just as enforcers of the law. The men must also be recruited to this task, by an organisational structure that gives them a right to speak out, inspect the mine themselves through their own, trained and experienced representatives, and be supported by a government inspector with the training and experience to guide the mine level decision-making. Sadly, there seems to be two main reasons why the former system was deregulated in New Zealand. In a period when self- regulation came in across the board in many areas of the economy, the cry was ‘cheaper is better’. Mining engineers were expensive; so they were reduced in numbers and replaced by general OSH inspectors, some of whom had no familiarity with mining. Companies were expected to take over most of the regulatory tasks. For a high-risk industry like coal despite some good safety practices, the inevitable erosion of standards took place – to the extent that Pike River managers reported to a Department of Labour inquiry in 2008 that they felt unsupported by the inspectors. In the same period there was a change from specific mining regulations to more general ones. This trend was also underway in the UK and Australia (a general consequence of the original Robens Commission on safety and health, in the UK), but in both the UK and Australia new risk assessment systems came in to manage the new system. Codes of guidance and practice were also introduced but few of these materialised in New Zealand. To get rid of specific regulations because they were becoming out dated by technical developments, without continually updating codes of practice, is a disaster waiting to happen. Is it reasonable to put the safety onus on the mining company rather than the individual? Modern safety and health law identifies the employer as primarily responsible for safety. Employees and the actors in the safety and health system also have responsibilities. In coal mines, individuals can do a lot to keep themselves and their colleagues