Nine out of ten coal mining deaths in Queensland over the past decade have been contractors and not full time employees, according to a new report from the Queensland Mines Inspectorate.
The alarming statistic comes from the Queensland Mines and Quarry Safety Report for 2012-13 which also shows that injury rates have dropped in Queensland over the past financial year.
Speaking to the ABC, Mine Safety Commissioner, Stewart Bell, said he believed mine operators should re-think their level of supervision of contract workers.
“We’ve been pushing that message out to the mining industry that contractors are mine workers – just like everyone else there,” he said.
“They have to be treated in exactly the same way, provided with the same safety resources, provided with the same training or at least an assurance they have been trained to a reasonable standard, before they’re engaged to work at the mine.”
“I’m quite comfortable in saying Queensland has one of the best mine safety records in the world but we can’t become complacent,” he said.
“We can’t become apathetic because every time we’re hurting somebody – that’s somebody who’s not coming home to his family in the same condition he left for work.
“Every time we kill somebody, well, he’s not going home at all and his wife and his children and his mother and his father are all permanently affected.”
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