Ian Jamieson
Following the death of miner Larry Knight and the rescue of two trapped miners 14 days after the April 25 rock fall at the Beaconsfield goldmine in northern Tasmania, on May 22 the state government established a special inquiry to coincide with a coronial inquest.
The inquiry, to be conducted by former National Crime Authority member Greg Melick, is expected to not only look at the specific causes of the April 25 rock fall, but also examine management's mining methods. Melick has been given all the powers of inspectors under the state Workplace Health and Safety Act, including the power to seize documents at the mine.
During the rescue operation that brought Todd Russell and Brant Webb safely to the surface, there was much speculation in the corporate media that the mine's management had flouted safety procedures and ignored workers' complaints about the methods used in the past year.
It is common knowledge among Tasmanian miners that the Beaconsfield mine has presented safety problems since its reopening in 1999. The mine first began more than 100 years ago, but the diggings in the upper levels proved unproductive and difficult and the mine was closed for many decades.
With no maintenance by its former owner, the mine filled with water, destablising the ground further. Upon discovery in the 1980s of extremely rich deposits of gold below the existing diggings, plans were made to reopen the mine.
It took nearly a year for the mine to be pumped free of water and much money was spent on attempting to stabilise the ground. At times it was thought that the problems caused by water erosion could not adequately be overcome and the whole project teetered in the balance.
However, the lure of gold kept the rehabilitation of Beaconsfield on course. The ore bodies have indeed proved very rich, with a yield of around 482 grams (17 ounces) per tonne — well above most goldmining operations in Australia.
The reopening of the mine proved a boon to the town of Beaconsfield, and certainly for its joint owners, Perth-based Allstate Exploration and Melbourne-based Beaconsfield Gold. Despite this, Allstate remains under administration while it works off a $47 million debt to Macquarie Bank.
Although wary of the ground conditions, hard-rock miners, reassured by management that strict safety requirements were in place, welcomed the employment that accompanied the mine's reopening.
However, doubts about safe working practices surfaced a year ago, well before a seismic occurrence in October similar to the one that triggered the rock fall on April 25. Workers reported that management increasingly mined ground-supporting pillars in stopes to maximise their returns in a context of rising gold prices.
Miners' fears about profit-driven mining practices are well founded. Despite millions being spent on safety programs in the past 20 years, there has not been a significant reduction in the rate of deaths in Australian mines. Mining is still one of Australia's most hazardous occupations.
There have been at least 175 mining deaths in Australia since 1994-95, excluding those who continue to die from asbestos-related diseases, which has reached almost epidemic proportions in mining and related industries.
Increased mechanisation has certainly decreased the number of deaths from the horrific toll experienced in mining in the early part of the 20th century, but it is false to claim that the incidence of accidents has decreased. There are far less miners and support crews actually working at one place and time than there were in the past.
It is now common for miners to work 12-hour shifts for up to and beyond two weeks straight. Coupled with an explosion of individual contracts that undermine union-negotiated safety agreements with mining companies, these long shifts have become yet another barrier to miners achieving a safe working environment.
And now there is another threat — the Howard government's new Work Choices industrial relations laws. These specifically exclude union-negotiated safety training programs from enterprise agreements, leaving in tatters well-funded and established mine rescue operations, particularly in the coal industry.
All miners would certainly welcome the independent inquiry into the Beaconsfield mine disaster. However, until all matters related to mine safety are taken into consideration, this disaster will pass as yet another "accident" in an industry driven by the quest for a quick buck.
[Ian Jamieson worked as a hard-rock miner on Tasmania's west coast from 1984-1999. He was the president of the Tasmanian Mining Industry Union Council, covering all Tasmanian mines.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 31, 2006.
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