Improving safety performance in the Australian mining industry

Improving safety performance in the Australian mining industry

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A recent review of safety performance in the global mining industry found that Australia has one of the lowest mining fatality rates in the world (Ural and Demirkol, 2008). Contributing to this is the remarkable progress made in Queensland, where incident rates have been reduced by more than 95 percent over the past century. These results have been driven by considerable improvements in safety procedures and in the risk management techniques used to identify, measure and address safety hazards. Although significant progress has been made to date, incidence rates now appear to have stabilised above the ambitious target of zero harm.

PwC's Performance Improvement group in Brisbane believe that further progress can be achieved by improving the processes involved in capturing, analysing and sharing safety data. This paper outlines how this can be achieved by addressing 12 improvement opportunities in three main areas:

  1. Using meaningful safety indicators
  2. Identifying high-risk areas
  3. Sharing information
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