E-Petition

The Petition of residents of the State of Queensland draws to the attention of the House that The Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999 (MQSHA) does not require a statutory competency for underground mine supervisors, despite the critical role supervisors play in managing risk, coordinating work, and ensuring safe systems of work in high-risk underground mining environments.

Independent reviews into serious incidents in the Queensland mining industry, including findings of the Brady Review, have identified inadequate supervision and capability gaps as contributing factors to safety failures. These findings highlight the importance of consistent, competent, and suitably qualified frontline supervision.

Other Australian jurisdictions mandate formal statutory qualifications for mining supervisors, recognising that experience alone is not a sufficient control for managing complex operational and safety risks.

The absence of a statutory competency requirement in Queensland results in inconsistent supervisory standards across sites, places excessive reliance on informal experience-based pathways, and increases the risk of insufficient supervision underground, and places increased legal risk on Site Senior Executives and health and safety risks on personnel, particularly with the DEI initiatives of several major mining companies fast-tracking personnel with insufficient experience to provide adequate supervision.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to:

1. amend the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999 and associated regulations to introduce a mandatory statutory competency requirement for underground mine supervisors; and
   
   
2.  ensure the competency framework considers recognised national standards and comparable interstate requirements, to strengthen supervision capability and improve safety outcomes in Queensland underground mines.