Resources Safety and Health Commissioner’s Mining Industry Safety Reporting Survey

Queensland’s mining industry recently participated in a voluntary survey to understand the state of safety reporting culture across the state’s coal mining, mineral mining and quarrying industries.

QRC’s Health and Safety Committee is utilising the results provided in the report as a benchmark to maintain and improve key strengths and measure improvement against key opportunities.

Overall, the report indicated that the industry has a strong safety reporting culture. Key strengths identified included:

• Teams typically look out for each other and support each other to work safely (93% always and usually)
• Safety prioritisation, safety knowledge, and risk management are key strengths for teams (90% always and usually)
• Frontline leaders encourage teams to take appropriate action if something feels unsafe (90% always and usually)
• Frontline and senior leaders encourage the reporting of near misses and high potential incidents (89% always and usually)
• Senior leaders are focused on investigating near misses and high potential incidents (89% always and usually)
• High level of awareness of internal reporting escalation pathways (83% knowing how to escalate safety concerns internally)

While the majority of respondents indicated that the industry is adept at reporting incidents and hazards, leaders actively promote reporting and there is a widespread understanding of the importance of safety and well-being discussions.

Opportunities for improvement highlighted in the report included:

• Senior leaders to provide regular feedback to workers (32% said that senior leaders do not provide enough feedback)
• Senior leaders need to increase visibility and interaction with frontline workers (32% reported senior leaders do not visit work areas often)
• Ensure adequate timeframes and resources for jobs to be completed safely (29% said timeframes and resources are not adequate to perform work safely)
• Simplify reporting processes for high potential incidents and hazards (28% found the reporting process complex)
• Increase confidence that complaints related to bullying, harassment and discrimination will be addressed appropriately (25% reported low confidence that complaints of bullying, discrimination and harassment would be addressed by leadership)
• Frontline leaders to provide recognition to workers to reinforce good safety behaviours (26% reported that frontline leaders need to provide more recognition)

Link to the survey Queensland mining industry safety reporting survey | Commissioner for Resources Safety & Health (crsh.qld.gov.au)