This is an uncorrected proof of evidence
taken before the committee and it is made
available under the condition it is recognised
as such.
COAL WORKERS’ PNEUMOCONIOSIS
SELECT COMMITTEE
Members present:
Mrs JR Miller MP (Chair)
Mr CD Crawford MP
Mr JP Kelly MP
Hon. LJ Springborg MP
Counsel assisting:
Mr B McMillan (Barrister at Law)
Staff present:
Dr J Dewar (Research Director)
PUBLIC HEARING—INQUIRY INTO COAL
WORKERS’ PNEUMOCONIOSIS
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
MONDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2016
Rockhampton
Public Hearing—Inquiry into Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
MONDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2016
____________
Committee met at 1.03 pm
CHAIR: I declare open the public hearing of the coal workers’ pneumoconiosis inquiry. Thank
you for your attendance here today. My name is Jo-Ann Miller. I am the member for Bundamba and
chair of the Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis Select Committee. The other members here with me are
the honourable Lawrence Springborg MP, Deputy Chair; Mr Craig Crawford MP, member for Barron
River; and Mr Joe Kelly MP, member for Greenslopes. Mr Jason Costigan MP, the member for
Whitsunday, and Mr Shane Knuth MP, the member for Dalrymple, who are both members of this
committee, are unable to join us today.
I just want to let you know who we are and what we are doing visiting the Rockhampton
community. The purpose of the public hearing today is to receive evidence on the committee’s inquiry
into the emergence of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung as it is commonly known, amongst
coal mine workers in Queensland. This committee is a bipartisan committee. Its purpose is to assess
whether the current arrangements to eliminate and prevent coal workers’ pneumoconiosis are
adequate and to look at the roles of government agencies, mine operators, dust monitoring
procedures, medical officers and unions in these arrangements now and into the future. Please note
that this is a formal proceeding of the Queensland parliament and is subject to its standing rules and
orders. The committee will not require evidence to be given under oath, but I remind you that
intentionally misleading the committee is a serious offence.
Those here today should note that the hearing is being transcribed by Hansard and that media
are present so that you may be filmed or photographed. Before we commence can I ask everyone to
turn off their mobile devices or put on to silent mode. For the benefit of Hansard I ask that witnesses
state their name and position when they first speak and speak clearly into the microphone.
Our first person today who is going to give evidence is Dr Brian Plush, a particulate matter
scientist. I now welcome Dr Plush and thank him for making himself available and for the submission
that he has made to the committee. For the record, could you please state you name and the capacity
in which you appear before the committee, please?
PLUSH, Dr Brian, Particulate Matter Scientist
Dr Plush: My name is Brian Plush and I am appearing in an invitational capacity as a
particulate matter scientist specialising in respirable dust identification, measurement and mitigation
in coal mines.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. Do you have an opening statement please, Dr Plush?
Dr Plush: I do. I take this opportunity to thank you for the invitation to speak at this forum and
to discuss in detail this totally preventable disease, pneumoconiosis, or black lung, as it is known. I
shall start with a quote that is a logo of the Australian Lung Foundation which I used when I appeared
at the Senate Select Committee on Health on 23 March in year. It simply states—
When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.
We now have 16 confirmed cases of pneumoconiosis in Australia since June last year, after a
protracted period of 30 years or more with no cases diagnosed. All these men will subscribe to the
quote above. Of the 16 men diagnosed with black lung, the journey to correct diagnosis has been an
emotional ringer. At the 4 November hearings this year we heard Mr Percy Verrall and his wife
Daphne’s chilling account of vomiting up blood for the first time in 2003. At the 21 November hearing
we heard Mr Garry Suhle giving evidence that after a chest X-ray—
They called me back one year there and said, ‘You’ve got a little bit of silicosis scarring’ and that is all they said.
Mr Kevin McPhail at the 22 November hearing stated—
I have been in the mines for 30-plus years. In March this year I was diagnosed with coalminers’ pneumoconiosis or CWP and
then my X-ray got sent overseas to Dr Cohen. It came back in May this year and it registered a 1.1 dust level, so to speak. I
might just have a break thanks.
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Mr Bernie Hendriksen at the 22 November hearing stated—
I work at Carborough Downs. I have been there since 2008 on site. I am an underground operator there. I had my tests sent
to Dr Cohen when Carborough sent their permanent workforce tests over and my reading came back as 0/1, but that is under
the threshold of having it but still a pretty big concern ongoing considering the exposure and how long you can stay in the
industry.
Finally, Mr Mark Fillingham at the 22 November hearing stated—
It is a big thing to be told, ‘You might have black lung.’ It is devastating. It is hard to describe when someone tells you that. It
just blew me away. It was the whole weekend that I was brought out of the equation. I sat in the office for the weekend.
Other statements heard during this inquiry reflect the emotional stress that the correct
diagnosis of black lung has put on the entire mining community and the surrounding community. It is
clear that this inquiry must pave the way forward to ensure this insidious disease is managed
correctly, but what about those who have the disease, who will be diagnosed with the disease and
those who must be prevented from contracting the disease? To this end I take this opportunity to
summarise what we know about the correct diagnosis of black lung in Queensland for the 16
confirmed cases. You can see I am not using re-emergence; I am saying it has been correctly
diagnosed.
Firstly, Senator Doug Cameron in the Senate debate on 3 May 2016 relating to the fifth interim
report stated that state and stakeholder submissions reveal a litany of regulator failure and regulatory
capture. There was industry indifference and competence, there was inconsistent risk mitigation and
there was patchy and sometimes compromised health monitoring throughout Australia.
Secondly, the Sim report from Monash University found a lack of appropriate training for
doctors working with the scheme and a standardised process of deciding who should have chest
X-rays; poor quality tests to measure the functioning of lungs; radiologists not being informed of what
they are looking for in chest X-rays; inadequate data collection; and a lack of clinical guidelines when
follow-up test and specialist referrals are necessary.
We have been advised throughout this inquiry by the regulators, that is the Department of
Natural Resources and Mines, that these known issues are now well under control. From this point
forward, according to them, no coal miner with black lung should go undiagnosed. While this appears
comforting, checks and balances are required to ensure these solutions are, in the first instance,
implemented and, more importantly, measured for success as the very health of our existing miners
relies on these changes to ensure the best possible outcome should they have this insidious disease.
It should be well remembered that this very regulator told us that black lung had been eradicated. To
this end, significant monitoring and accountability structures should be in place to ensure the past is
not repeated.
Professor Malcolm Sim in his evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday, 9 November stated—
Lastly, I would like to finish by reemphasising that the prime focus for addressing coal workers’ pneumoconiosis and other coal
mine dust lung disease is effective dust control and monitoring, with medical screening providing a secondary line of information
about the effectiveness of such controls. If medical screening is going to be in place, it needs to be good quality, run by well
trained and provide good advice and good follow-up to these affected workers.
This statement from Professor Sim emphasises what we do not know about the current
exposure levels and monitoring regime for underground coal mine workers. We do not know the
following: are the current exposure levels safe? If so, which one is safe? The current Queensland
exposure level to 3 milligrams per cubic metre, the current NSW exposure level of 2.5 milligrams per
cubic metre, or the current US exposure level of 1.5 milligrams per cubic metre? Are the existing dust
control methods effective at removing the respirable dust in the environment? Are some dust controls
more effective than others? Do some dust control methods increase respirable dust in the working
environment? Does the existing monitoring regime identify where an exceedance occurs? Are the
existing dust control methods removing as much respirable dust as possible from the working
environment? Does the existing PPE protect workers as designed? These are only examples of what
is unknown about the production and effective removal of respirable dust before it enters the mining
environment and subjects workers to black lung.
It is my aim to provide this inquiry with a scientifically robust, peer reviewed, industry accepted,
workable model that can be implemented and measured to remove the harmful respirable dust in
mining, potentially minimising the risk to workers of further and increased exposure to these deadly
particles. This model utilises a testing methodology that measures the amount of respirable dust
produced at individual sources of dust generation not only during the mining cycle but also on
transport, roads and belt roads where significant dust is also produced that enters the mine
atmospheres.
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The particles are collected as per AS2985; however, they are analysed as a raw particle weight
and not a time weighted average. The raw particle weight is then divided into the tonnes cut during
the measurement cycle, giving the milligrams per tonne of respirable dust produced. This
measurement is taken to establish a benchmark respirable dust production during the cutting cycle
with all dust controls turned off and repeated with all dust controls turned on. The difference between
the two tests will tell how much respirable dust the installed controls remove. This measures the
effectiveness of the dust controls. The test can be repeated as often as the mine requires to fully
understand the behaviour of their dust production and to ensure that they are removing as much dust
as they possibly can from the mining environment. Exposure level testing is unable to identify this
occurrence.
I am on record stating that black lung in whatever form is totally preventable. We must achieve
this through the use of scientifically based dust measurement proven technology to remove the
respirable dust at individual sources of dust generation and focus research efforts to determine a
scientifically based safe level of coal dust inhalation, if one exists. I will now take questions.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, Dr Plush. I would now like to go to the Deputy Chair to begin
questions.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much, Dr Plush, for
helping us today and also your rather extensive submission. It is pretty obvious to me that you have
had significant experience and interest in this going back many years. There are just a couple of
comments that you are very, very strong on with regard to the issue of CWP. We have 17 confirmed
cases now, but we may actually have more. A lot of people out there do not know that, but I have no
doubt there may be more just over the horizon.
You assert that CWP is totally and absolutely preventable. Could you step us through how you
would go about ensuring that it is totally and absolutely preventable given the increase in productivity
in the mining industry in recent years and the fact that, particularly with longwall mining, there has
been more generation of dust as that production has escalated? How would you go about that? Is it
a combination of monitoring, suppression and all those sorts of things? Can you step us through?
Dr Plush: The first thing that is required in any dust production activity—longwall mining,
development mining, transfers, belts, belt travel roads—is to identify how much dust is produced, and
to do that we need to establish a benchmark. To establish a benchmark we need to first of all identify
where the dust comes from. Once we can identify where the dust comes from and in what quantity
the dust comes out, then we can apply installed controls, whether they be water sprays, whether they
be dust extractors, whether they be ventilation, whether they be directional winds, whether they be a
whole raft of other engineering controls that are available. Then once that installed control has been
put into place and you actually quantify the difference between the two that will give you a percentage
increase or decrease that that installed control has done. I would say that all people who work
underground—I believe you used to work underground yourself—
Mr SPRINGBORG: No, Mr Pearce did. He is sometimes with the committee.
CHAIR: Yes, Jim Pearce is an apology here today. He is not a member of the committee, but
he normally is available to be part of the committee proceeding.
Dr Plush: As I was saying, I am sure that anybody who works underground knows where the
dust comes from. They know that it comes from anywhere the dust is crushed, which is the crusher
or anywhere where the material changes direction, that is, from a conveyor belt onto another conveyor
belt. The people underground know exactly where it comes from. What needs to be done is to find
out at those points of dust generation how much pm2.5 is generated, and only once a benchmark
has been established can the trials be put in place to control that.
Mr SPRINGBORG: I just have a couple of supplementary questions. Would we have to have
strict government regulation as part of this—because one of the things we have heard is that there
has been this journey towards more of a self-regulatory environment with a degree of oversight—or
should there be more strict regulation to ensure that there is compliance, enforcement and the
adoption of particular mandatory standards?
Dr Plush: I believe the problem is that we do not know whether the mandatory standards are
actually safe, so to enforce an environment that is based around, in my opinion, guesswork more than
anything, we really are not going to remove this product. We can have a compliance procedure
running in parallel with other efficiency testing. I do this efficiency testing at many mines to give them
the understanding of the behaviour of their dust, and in all instances once they implement this testing
regime the compliance levels come down. They come well underneath the compliance level. We are
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talking 50 per cent underneath it. The compliance levels can stay in place until such time as a safe
level is found and the regulation and the punitive actions have to be evolved around that, but to
actually find out the efficiencies, I believe that the industry would welcome that with open arms as
they have done now because it gives them the information they need to be able to address it
accurately.
Mr SPRINGBORG: You have obviously studied the issue of mine safety, particularly around
respirable dust in the industry, quite extensively, not only domestically but internationally. Are you
aware of any places around the world where there has been a total eradication of CWP in the mining
industry? Is there any place that we should look to that has been able to do what you say can be
done, and that is total prevention?
Dr Plush: No, there are not any.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Which is the best?
Dr Plush: When Australian mines have everything functioning as they know they can get it,
yes, the Australian mines are by far the best; however, I have seen some mines around here that are
absolutely atrocious.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Even if we reduce, we find that safe level and then we ensure compliance,
we have oversight, we have the regulators doing what they should be doing, we have the
diagnosticians that actually know what they are doing, all of these sorts of things that have gone
completely wrong over the last few years, then you would say that there should be no case of CWP
despite the fact that there may be even some people who do have a higher risk or susceptibility to
CWP?
Dr Plush: I do not think we will ever eradicate totally CWP for the simple fact that people may
be genetically coded to getting it. What we do not know is how much of a dose you need to create
black lung. We do not know that.
Mr SPRINGBORG: You would then segregate out what would be something being totally
preventable rather than saying that you could totally eradicate it?
Dr Plush: It is totally preventable, but can you totally eradicate it? I would like to think we can,
but at this point I cannot see how. The simple fact is that in most mines there is float dust, there is
dust that comes in particularly from movement of the chocks underground, there is a lot of dust coming
in if they crush the roof out and they are variables that change constantly. They may have controls in
place that have worked really well for 90 per cent of the time, and then they may have a great big
stone band through the face and that just throws all of that out the window and a new set of controls
are going to be required to control that dust. As long as everything stays as it should, yes, but the
variables in mining do not stay as they should.
Mr SPRINGBORG: We should have it totally preventable but we may not be able to totally
eradicate it.
Dr Plush: Yes.
Mr SPRINGBORG: We then need to have proper processes of checking and testing to make
sure that we do pick up people early and that we can actually stop the circumstances exacerbating
for those people.
Dr Plush: Exactly. I have had discussions with Professor Alastair Stewart of the University of
Melbourne lung therapeutic centre, and part of the research that has been put forward is that through
rodent testing we can identify biomarkers that can differentiate between why one person gets
emphysema and one person does not. They can actually identify the genes that do that, and that may
allow them to identify a person who can go into mining from a person who cannot go into mining.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Also in your submission you were saying that this will be an absolute
epidemic and that we are going to see many more cases of this totally preventable disease in the
very near future. Do you have material facts that back that up, or are you using the basis of what we
have seen to date, and that is that this has gone undiagnosed? I believe absolutely that this term
‘re-emergence’ is a nonsense term. It makes an excuse for the fact that the whole system has failed.
You are just working on the basis that because we have thousands of images that have been taken
out there and we have tens of thousands of miners, that given what we know today it is just going to
get worse?
Dr Plush: No, it is also the fact that in April 2010 over in America there was the Upper Big
Branch explosion. Are you aware of that?
Mr SPRINGBORG: Yes.
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Dr Plush: Twenty-nine miners were killed and of those 29, 21 had autopsies. Of those 21 who
had autopsies, 17 had advanced black lung.
Mr SPRINGBORG: I think you point out rates of up around 70 to 80 per cent.
Dr Plush: That was there, but the industry then said, ‘Is that indicative of what’s in the market?’
We do not know. Is that indicative of the whole environment? We do not know. Because they do not
know, I am saying that it is going to be very high.
Mr SPRINGBORG: In the US they actually have a lower benchmark than what we do—or
higher, depending on whichever way you look at it—I think it is around about—
Dr Plush: It is 1.5 now.
Mr SPRINGBORG:—1.5 milligrams per cubic metre. We have 3; New South Wales has 2.5.
Even with more protective benchmarks which should be half of what we are, half the level, is it true
that their compliance and their enforcement is nowhere near as good as ours even though ours has
failed?
Dr Plush: They do self-regulate, as you rightly say, and there have been flaws with that
self-regulation. The WHO in 1995 recommended 1 milligram as the exposure level.
Mr SPRINGBORG: But 1 milligram without the proper regulatory and compliance environment
really is meaningless, is it not?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. They all are in the current regulatory environment.
Mr SPRINGBORG: So by and large you think that, as time goes by and these images are
being read and people’s records are being rechecked, we are going to see dozens, if not hundreds,
of cases of simple and complex coal workers’ pneumoconiosis?
Dr Plush: I believe so. America currently gets 1,000 new cases a year and we cut the same
coal, in the same year, with the same equipment and the same men, and I cannot see why—
Mr SPRINGBORG: They are running around about 10 per cent at the moment, aren’t they,
overall?
Dr Plush: It varies, obviously, from county to county, but on average, yes, it gets up to about
10 per cent. Some are higher. I have actually got the paper where they tried to do an analysis of why
Australia does not have black lung and the US does, and they have gone through there and said that
in many instances Australian exposure levels are higher than in America and they cannot understand
why the differences occur that we do not get it in Australia and they do get it in America. Clearly we
were not diagnosing it correctly. That is why I am saying that we are going to be very similar to what
America has.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Or not diagnosing it at all.
CHAIR: I would now like to ask Craig Crawford, the member for Barron River, if he has any
questions.
Mr CRAWFORD: I have a couple of questions. Did you find any evidence when you were
looking at longwalls or with the particular companies that they were sharing ideas between them in
relation to trying to mitigate dust, or was it sort of everyone for themselves?
Dr Plush: No, they certainly try and share. Part of the research that I have done in the past
has developed a best practice, so that best practice is transferred amongst the industry. For instance,
if they have success, say, at Appin in New South Wales with a smaller diameter spray in the discharge
where the BSL works, it gets through the industry and they will try that as well. But it has to be
measured, because the current process is subjective as to improvements or not, so it has to be
measured. We get miners who say that a shower rose is great at removing dust—it is not—and we
get other miners who say no, it is not. We have to remove subjectivity from the environment and put
the best practice in on the stuff that has actually been quantified as working.
Yes, they do share information. What I found more than anything over the last sort of 12 months
is the equipment suppliers like Caterpillar and Joy are now much more involved in the dust mitigation
process in the equipment they supply. In the past they have left it entirely up to the mines. Now they
seek out further information to put better controls in there to assist the mines. Yes, it is getting shared
through equipment, through people and through results. Yes, that is what I find.
Mr CRAWFORD: My second question is with regard to—and I do not know if I have the phrase
right—top coal caving, is that what it is called?
Dr Plush: Yes.
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Mr CRAWFORD: We have had some miners who work in a top coal caving environment say
that the dust is excessive when that is operating. What are your thoughts in relation to that process?
Dr Plush: It is excessive. I have worked on a few of the top coal caving mines, one down in
New South Wales at—I will not mention the name—and they have had that precise problem, the
same problem they have had up here. What we found through comprehensive testing and CFD
modelling was that as the ventilation comes down the face and turns onto the face, the back conveyor
gets over-pressurised. Because there is a smaller area the velocity picks up, the pressure pushes
forward and all the dust comes back into the front walkway. How we overcame that was we actually
split the ventilation so that the ventilation did not go into the back train. You do not need to ventilate
that because just a normal ventilation would be fine, and the dust actually settled down so we were
quite able to reduce the dust very efficiently on that. Yes, they do produce a lot more.
Mr CRAWFORD: Have you looked at all of the open-cut environments? Obviously you read a
number of the transcripts of the hearings that we have had. We have heard a number of people
working in the open-cut environments talking about dust in workshop areas and inside equipment that
they are operating. Have you looked into any of that, or do you know of anyone who has looked into
that area?
Dr Plush: Unfortunately, I have not been involved in the aboveground dust process.
Historically they believed that dust is a major problem underground only. I have argued that wherever
you have dust there is going to be a problem, full stop. I also believe that there is dust further than
the coalmines into the communities surrounding the coalmines. Transport corridors, anywhere where
particulate matter is coming from, anywhere where the rock has been crushed, you are going to get
problems.
Mr CRAWFORD: What about the loading facilities at the ships?
Dr Plush: Absolutely.
CHAIR: You believe the ports may be a problem as well?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. Anywhere where there is the smaller particle size, I am a firm believer. I
know that it is particle size, not particle type, which creates the lung problems as I have said.
CHAIR: Could you further expand on what you are meaning in relation to the residents of the
coalmining towns—that they could also be at risk?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. There is anecdotal evidence in papers published with NIOSH, for
instance, over in the US, where the wives of coalminers have had black lung from washing clothes.
There is elevated levels of heart disease, stillborn, asthma around clusters like Singleton and
Muswellbrook. That has been well written about by the AIOH. Yes, definitely, particulate matter of
that size from the mine environment has a significant effect on surrounding communities.
CHAIR: You would be including communities like Blackwater, Middlemount—all the coalmining
towns throughout Central Queensland?
Dr Plush: Absolutely—at Emerald.
CHAIR: There is no doubt in your mind that the residents of those towns may be at risk?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. I believe that the testing is flawed.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, Dr Plush. I would now like to go to Joe Kelly, the member for
Greenslopes, for his questions.
Mr KELLY: Thanks, Dr Plush. The levels that you refer to that you say there is no agreement
on saying what constitutes safe levels, is there any active research going on at the present time?
Dr Plush: Not that I am aware of. In a joint co-project role with the University of Melbourne—
the lung therapeutic centre—we have applied for funding through various areas to commence these
rodent trials, but we have not been successful in gaining funding.
Mr KELLY: And nothing internationally?
Dr Plush: Not that I know of internationally, no.
Mr KELLY: With the dust control and mitigation that is occurring at a longwall or other point in
the mining process, if we have a level that exceeds what is currently the safe level, it is not possible,
is it, necessarily to say that, because a worker has been in that environment that they will, down the
track, develop CWP? Our reasoning for trying to reduce dust in that situation is that general baseline
protection; is that correct?
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Dr Plush: We do not know the effect those loads have, as you rightly say. Those loads can
occur with men handling pipes, men handling ventilation tubes. The dust falls down and if you get a
dose load of it, does that create the disease? We do not know. Does it exacerbate the disease? We
do not know. The aim of removing it at the source is to stop it getting in the atmosphere and to
minimise those dose loads.
Mr KELLY: Do you think shift lengths have any impact on dose loads?
Dr Plush: Again, we do not know that. Obviously, the longer the shift the more dose loads you
get but, then again, you are going to get them the next day anyway. Again, the aim is to remove it
before it gets into the air to minimise the chances of the dose loads.
Mr KELLY: You talked in your submission about the disaster in America where 70 per cent of
those people who had undergone an autopsy were shown to have advanced CWP. Do the folks in
the United States have the same sort of—allegedly—screening processes that we have here, the
recommended five-year chest X-ray?
Dr Plush: No, it is better. They have it that they have screenings going around townships all
the time and the miners can go and get screened pretty much whenever they like and it is always
covered.
Mr KELLY: If they have a better regime, how is it that 70 per cent of miners in one mine on
autopsy end up with advanced CWP—not early, simple CWP, but advanced CWP? If they have a
better testing regime, how does that occur?
Dr Plush: That is what needs to be comprehensively researched. They do not know. That mine
itself, they were saying through that report by Davitt McAteer that they were a very high silica based
coal. We all know that silica, or silicosis, is far more aggressive than what the coal dust is. That could
be the problem, but then they would have to do testing in other similar mines to find out if that is the
case.
Part of the culture, too, in America, particularly in the area where the Upper Big Branch was, is
that it is very—I should not say it—they are very men’s men. They do not wear dust masks. I have
witnessed them not wearing dust masks. It is a very bravado type of affair. In those areas, they may
not be as open to the screening process as what they would be in other larger mines, for instance.
Mr KELLY: Is the screening process over there a self-generating screening process? It is not
mandatory? My understanding here is that, if I want to go down a mine, I have to show up with a
coalminer’s health certificate.
Dr Plush: Yes.
Mr KELLY: Which would include a—
Dr Plush: Chest X-ray.
Mr KELLY: A chest X-ray periodically. Is that required?
Dr Plush: I do not know what the contractors are like over there, but the miners have them
before they start and at regular intervals along as well, but they can also have them when they require
through their unions and the like. In fact, I had to have a chest X-ray done for myself as a contractor.
Actually, this is quite interesting. I had this done on 30 April. I had to ask the nominated medical officer
for a report on my chest X-ray. They wrote to me and said, ‘It is currently not a requirement for the
chest X-ray report to be provided to the patient upon completion of the Queensland Medical Board.’
I have that in writing from the nominated medical officer. I had to ask for it. They did not give it to me.
Mr KELLY: When you did ask, they gave it to you?
Dr Plush: Yes, and it came back that I am all clear.
Mr KELLY: In one of your recommendations—
CHAIR: Dr Plush, do you know of other people who ask for the results of their X-rays?
Dr Plush: Only the people who I work with, yes. We all ask for them.
CHAIR: You all ask for them?
Dr Plush: Yes. I was a little bit taken aback that I had to ask. Normally, they do not give it. It is
mine.
CHAIR: What do you think should happen?
Dr Plush: Of course, they should tell me—absolutely. I have every right to know. Anybody who
has a chest X-ray has every right to know. Anybody who has a medical has every right to know if
there is any sort of issue or problem.
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CHAIR: What is your understanding of what happens to the results of the chest X-ray?
Dr Plush: I have no understanding of it. I do not know—none. They do not tell me what
happens to it.
CHAIR: Thank you.
Mr KELLY: Your additional recommendations relate to compensation and funding for people
affected not just by CWP but other dust related diseases. The objective should be to mitigate or
established dust-free workplaces and then have regular ongoing health screening to pick up CWP in
the early stages. It is my understanding that, if we pick up CWP in the early stages and we remove
the person from the source of irritant, the chances of the disease progressing are extremely small.
That puts it into an interesting perspective. In your experience in other jurisdictions, particularly
overseas, how have other jurisdictions handled this situation? We have a person who realistically,
from a health perspective, should no longer continue to be involved in a mining environment.
Obviously, that involves a loss of future earnings but they are not incapable of working in other
environments. Have other jurisdictions attempted to deal with this compensation issue?
Dr Plush: Yes. The UK many years ago set up a fund for anybody who worked in the
coalmining industry. They registered with this fund and they were looked after if they did develop lung
disease. America has a similar sort of program in place now that is funded through the industry.
Mr KELLY: I read your 2011 paper, Dust controls and monitoring practices on Australian
longwalls. You have obviously been thinking about, researching and dealing with these issues for a
long time. When you published that paper, was there a great deal of interest from the industry in terms
of what you and other academics had come up with and a desire to implement anything from your
paper?
Dr Plush: None at all—no interest.
Mr KELLY: Has that changed at all in recent times?
Dr Plush: Yes.
Mr KELLY: In a positive way?
Dr Plush: I can mention Carborough Downs, where they had the first case of black lung. They
were extremely proactive in what they did. I have to commend the guys. They were absolutely
fantastic. They took on board everything I recommended—all of the testing that we did—and they
have got to the point now where this new longwall block, we are just going through to the point now
where I will be back involved in the next couple of weeks. Yes, they have taken it on board. Other
mines have taken it on board but, generally, only to get them back into compliance. Once they are
back into compliance, I am not needed again until such time as they get out of compliance again.
Mr KELLY: Okay. We have heard a lot of testimony in previous hearings about the impacts of
casualised or temporary employment in the industry particularly in relation to people raising safety
concerns and not being able to pursue those for fear of losing their jobs. In your experience, are you
aware of anything of that nature occurring where people are afraid to raise safety aspects either in
relation to dust or anything else because of the status of their employment?
Dr Plush: I have never personally experienced that. In fact, I would have to say that, whenever
I am on a mine site, there is frank and open discussion about dust and black lung from the
management down to the men in the vehicles going underground and none of them seemed reserved
at all in voicing their opinion. Again, that is only my experience with that. I have not heard of anybody
say, ‘We are too scared to say anything’ and that is ranging from the deputies underground. In a few
instances, it has been like a bit of a game that they will pull up to the deputy and say, ‘Listen, Dr Plush
agrees with us. We want to do this now.’ They have obviously been aware of it, they have obviously
complained about it and then they have obviously got support to implement the changes that they
want to.
Mr KELLY: Would it be your view that we can achieve mitigation levels to a lower level? If we
take your testimony at face value, we do not know what a safe level is at this point, but we can achieve
dust mitigation to lower levels if we apply some of the controls that you have researched and put
forward?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. In two instances, by installing quantified controls we have removed over
70 per cent of the dust on a longwall face. At Carborough, we have only removed up to 41 per cent,
but we will get up to that 72, 75, up to 80 per cent we will remove. Yes, it can be done.
Mr KELLY: Thank you.
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CHAIR: Thank you very much. Dr Plush, in your opening statement and after a couple of
questions you mentioned that some mines are absolutely atrocious. Are you able to tell us which
mines they are?
Dr Plush: No. I do not want to mention those. Maybe if we can do it off the record, we can. I
prefer not to.
CHAIR: I would now like to go into private session. Can we please clear the gallery for five
minutes?
Evidence was then taken in camera but later resumed in public—
CHAIR: Thank you to the gallery. We are now back in public session. I would now like to go to
counsel assisting.
Mr McMILLAN: Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr Plush, can I ask you to expand upon your
evidence? You made a comment earlier that it is the size of the particles that is critical. Can you walk
us through the difference between respirable dust, inhalable dust and other dust which may not be
dangerous to human health?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. Particle size is critical to our lung function. Anything above roughly
20 microns in size we have the capability to remove in our lungs. We have little hairs in our nose, we
have little cilia in our lungs and we have a process called Brownian diffusion that works in our lungs.
Our lungs are a tortuous path. The reason our lungs are a tortuous path from the top to the bottom is
that, as the air changes direction, any particles in there will get pushed to the side. As they are pushed
to the side, our little hairs and the mucus can actually take that out. The smaller the particle, it stays
inside the centre of the air flow and so it will get taken down to the bottom of the lung and impact on
the little alveoli. That is what creates it. Any particle roughly less than five microns in size can go right
down to the bottom of the lung.
Mr McMILLAN: As I understand it, five microns is 0.005 of a millimetre?
Dr Plush: That is correct—tiny, tiny, tiny. The smallest we can see as humans is about 70
microns, which is a hair. We can see the thickness of a hair.
Mr McMILLAN: So that is the dust that really is dangerous for human dust that leads to CWP?
Dr Plush: Yes.
Mr McMILLAN: Is the dust that workers can see safe or is it to be assumed that there is a
proportion of that dust which is respirable?
Dr Plush: There will be a proportion and that depends on the dust that is in the air. As a car
drives past and there is dust up, the chances are there will be very few particles of five microns or
less in size. However, there will be a lot more dust in the air from the crushing effect than there will
be in the normal environment.
Mr McMILLAN: Can you speak to the changes in mining practice and whether the modern
form of longwall coalmining creates more respirable dust than historical forms of coalmining?
Mr McMILLAN: Historically, yes. The bigger machines have more horsepower; they can cut
deeper webs. With larger horsepower, bigger cuts and bigger seams, more dust is created. It is purely
and simply related to tonnes. The more tonnes you produce, the more dust you produce.
Mr McMILLAN: Is there a higher proportion of the dust that is created respirable than in
previous forms of mining?
Dr Plush: No, it remains the same because the ground is crushed.
Mr McMILLAN: I want to move to the other aspects of the coalmining industry where workers
might be subject to respirable dust. You were asked some questions about coalmining communities.
I am particularly interested in coal handling and processing plants. The committee has heard evidence
from a number of mines where workers who have been diagnosed with CWP have been moved to
what are called ‘low dust environments’ and in at least two cases those workers are now working in
coal handling and processing plants. What should the committee consider about the likelihood that
workers in those handling and processing plants are being exposed to respirable coal dust?
Dr Plush: Again, they need to be measured—not monitored, measured. We need to measure
the amount of pm2.5 in the atmosphere. General monitoring, particularly above ground, as I said, is
flawed.
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Mr McMILLAN: The evidence which has been received so far is that the reason those workers
are placed in those environments is that the exposure standards that are being measured in handling
and processing plants are less than the three grams per cubic metre of air. Why is that a problem in
terms of a standard or a measurement to determine whether those workers are safe in that
environment or not?
Dr Plush: Again, we do not know whether that environment is safe at all. We do not know what
a safe level of pm2.5 is. We do not know. If they still have smaller doses of it, is it still having a
cumulative effect? We do not know.
Mr McMILLAN: What do you mean when you say pm2.5?
Dr Plush: That is respirable size dust, sorry.
Mr McMILLAN: That is all right. Why is the exposure standard gravimetric testing not adequate
to tell us that those workers are not being exposed to that level of respirable dust?
Dr Plush: No. 1, it is a time weighted average so it does not give an indication of where they
were when that reading was taken. No. 2, what it does not do is tell us the amount of particles that
are there. It just tells us that they have so many milligrams per cubic metre going through the filter. It
does not tell us what is in the environment at all. The challenges with that gravimetric testing are
purely and simply the time weighted average and it is on the person, not on the individual source of
dust generation.
Mr McMILLAN: The committee has heard some evidence that there is a significant concern
amongst workers that when they perceive they have been in very dusty environments the tests come
back as invalid or have been contaminated in some way. I notice that you have made reference to
that in your 2011 paper with your colleagues about the rate of contamination of the current monitoring
regime. Can you expand upon that and explain a little further about why these tests are contaminated?
Dr Plush: The tests get contaminated when there is a dose load that goes into the monitor.
When the filters are pulled out, if there is an uneven layer across the top of the filter it is classed as
invalid because it has been hit with a big dose load. That is how it becomes invalid.
Mr McMILLAN: Does that suggest that the worker was in fact exposed to a high level of
respirable dust, or does it not necessarily indicate anything if the test is contaminated?
Dr Plush: In my opinion, yes. Whether he was handling a pipe, whether he was moving a bit
of brattice, whatever function he was doing—he could have walked past a boot on a longwall, hit it
and a big puff of dust will come out, and that will get sucked into the monitor and that will read, and
generally when it is uneven they class it as invalid.
Mr McMILLAN: Is it possible to know or to extrapolate from those invalid results whether those
workers were likely exposed to high levels of respirable dust?
Dr Plush: No, because another reason they become invalid is the pump will not work. It will
stop working. It does not work for the eight hours. There are not enough minutes on it. The hose may
have come off. It may have been wet. It could have been dropped. There is a whole raft of things that
do make it invalid.
Mr McMILLAN: What do you make of the PDM real-time dust monitors, which I think is what
they are called? Are they an effective, useful alternative as a particulate matter scientist? Should this
committee be encouraging the use of those monitors?
Dr Plush: They are okay as an indicator for personnel positioning, but the light-scattering
version of the PDM actually reads water as well. It reads particle size, not particle type. If there is a
lot of water in the air, it will give you a high reading. It does not necessarily tell you that you are in a
high area of respirable dust. It just tells you that you are in a high area of particles. Without controls
on, yes, it can work. With controls on, I do not think so.
Mr McMILLAN: What monitoring would be ideal?
Dr Plush: At the source monitoring. As I said, it is a known area of dust production on a
longwall. For instance, you have your last open cut through where the dust comes in from the travel
road. You have your belt road. If it is antitropal, the air will come in through there. If it goes out the
other way, dust comes in from the BSL discharge onto the conveyor belt. Dust comes in from the
main gate crusher. Dust comes in from the shields. You have 53 per cent of your dust comes from
the shearer and 29 per cent comes from the shields. You know where those sources are. If you
constantly monitor those sources and ensure that you remove as much dust as you can then your
exposure levels will be low.
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Mr McMILLAN: Is it your sense then that the current regime for exposure monitoring effectively
means that mine operators, whether intentionally or otherwise, are not measuring the right thing?
They are measuring what a particular worker might have been exposed to over an eight-hour period
rather than the amount of dust that is actually in the environment?
Dr Plush: Absolutely.
Mr McMILLAN: If intentionally or otherwise the particular workers who happen to be wearing
those monitors are not in that particular area of dust, you are not going to get accurate readings of
the dust exposure are you?
Dr Plush: It is an accurate reading of what they are exposed to during their normal work day.
It is accurate. If they are not exposed to the general environment on the longwall face, that is their
daily activity so that is what they are exposed to on a daily basis.
Mr McMILLAN: Do you believe that there is a practice in the industry of mine operators
requiring their workers to wear dust exposure monitors during maintenance days?
Dr Plush: I have never seen it. The monitoring I have seen is on the face in production on the
development panels and the longwalls, and I have been to quite a few at different times.
Mr McMILLAN: Subject to the limitations around that form of monitoring, are you satisfied in
your experience at least that it is being implemented in the way that the regulatory regime intends—
Dr Plush: Yes.
Mr McMILLAN:—by the operators?
Dr Plush: Yes. Every operator I have ever come across hates dust and wants to remove it. It
is my opinion—I have seen it—that the last thing they want to do is have themselves exposed to too
much dust. Whatever they can put in place that will help them remove that dust they are 100 per cent
behind.
Mr McMILLAN: You mentioned in your evidence earlier that silica dust was more aggressive
than coal dust. This committee’s focus is obviously on coal dust. Would the measures that you have
suggested to help reduce coal dust also be effective in reducing the amount of respirable silica dust
that workers are exposed to?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. Silica dust is present in our coal seams in Australia. Obviously the level
of silicosis depends on the amount of actual rock in the strata, but it is still evident there. It still works
the same. The respirable size particle is particle size. The silicosis gets down to that same particle
size.
Mr McMILLAN: If all of the recommendations in your submission were adopted by this
committee as part of its recommendations, would you be satisfied that that would assist in protecting
workers from silica dust as well?
Dr Plush: Absolutely.
Mr McMILLAN: You made reference in your evidence earlier to coalminers I think generally
being ‘men’s men’ and there perhaps being a resistance to wearing the proper respiratory protective
equipment. Do you think that this myth that CWP did not exist in Australia over the last 30 years has
contributed to that culture, that respiratory equipment was unnecessary?
Dr Plush: Let me be clear. I made that reference to America, to the US. In Australia—no. The
men wear dust masks as often as they can. I have seen them wearing them in vehicles underground.
Anywhere where they have can actually feel the dust or see it they will put a mask on. In Australia
they are phenomenal. I am yet to see anybody who actually has that bravado here.
Mr McMILLAN: Thank you.
CHAIR: Dr Plush, I would just like to go back over your evidence in relation to coalmining
towns. Is it your experience that teachers and nurses who have transferred into some of the
coalmining towns are aware that they might be exposed to coal dust in the course of their duties and
also living in mining towns?
Dr Plush: No, I do not. I do not think it is a common discussion that takes place for anybody
moving into those communities.
CHAIR: Do you think it should be?
Dr Plush: Absolutely.
CHAIR: Do you believe that Education Queensland and the hospital and health services should
provide maybe warnings or some information to people who sometimes are forcibly transferred into
those communities?
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Dr Plush: They should be aware, yes. We had a thunderstorm in Melbourne that created
enough pm2.5 to kill people. This particulate matter is dangerous stuff. At any time if particulate matter
is around, people should be aware.
Mr McMILLAN: Sorry, Madam Chair. There was another matter that I omitted to deal with.
Could I have leave to do so?
CHAIR: Yes.
Mr McMILLAN: Dr Plush, I meant to ask you earlier about your recommendations for dust
mitigation in the underground environment. Particularly I wanted to ask you about water sprays and
ventilation. The committee has heard some evidence that they are seen as useful dust mitigation
strategies. Is it a case that more is better in both—the more ventilation you have the less dust you
have and similarly the more water you use the less dust you have—or is there some measure that
mine operators should be aiming for?
Dr Plush: Absolutely. First of all I will address the ventilation. Too much ventilation can have
an adverse effect on dust. The dust particles or the dust that is actually left over from the mining cycle
could be entrained into the air with ventilation due to purely its speed and be added to along the face.
It can actually exacerbate the problem of dust production by entraining particles that were removed
simply because of the velocities involved. Too low velocity or too low a volume of air coming into the
longwall face also has an adverse effect for the simple fact that it does not remove the dust. There is
a sweet spot, which is usually anywhere between 40 cubic metres per second and 60 cubic metres
per second depending on the size of the longwall—the height and the width and the length of the
longwall—to actually dilute the gas and to remove the dust from the face.
Also, with ventilation you can get a very quick bang for your buck to remove the dust by
ensuring that ventilation goes straight down the face and does not bypass the main gate chock and
go into the goaf. They can put a curtain up that will actually turn it down. The mines with the best
maintained curtains have the best flow around the main gate area and they tend to stop the turbulence
created around there. Again, too much ventilation when the shearer is coming into the main gate is
like having machine guns fired at you. As the area reduces due to the size of the machine coming in,
the ventilation increases because it has nowhere to go and it becomes missiles from rocks so you
are absolutely peppered. It is integral that the ventilation is exactly right for the mining environment.
If we can address sprays. Sprays originally were put into equipment to take away the water
from the cooling circuit. Generally they were big sprays with big orifices that did nothing to remove
the dust. In actual fact, in many cases they made more dust because if the particle size is too big it
will hit the dust and actually blow it up into the air. There is a lot of science that has been done and a
lot of research that has been done on spray types. Many mines try to get one spray to do three
different functions. You need a different spray to remove the dust, to knock it out of the air, than what
you do to force the dust in a direction and to encapsulate the dust. They have three different functions.
In all of these functions, the size of the orifice and the pressure going into the spray itself, the nozzle
itself, is integral. If you have a nozzle greater than two millimetres, the particle size is too big to
accommodate agglomeration.
By way of explanation, agglomeration is where the dust tries to bond with the water. If the
particles are too big, the dust will bounce off it. However, if the particles are the right size, they bond
with it—they get enough gravity and they fall out of the air. That is dust mitigation. It will remove the
dust in the air through bonding. However, if the orifice size is too big, the particles are too big. If the
pressure is too great through a small orifice, the particles are too small and they will actually blow
away. There is a fine line between that as well. It is about the correct orifice size and the correct
pressure—up to 15 bar or up to 35 bar on the face. There are sweet spots for all of that. Most of the
mines are aware of that now. Most of the OEMs are incorporating what the mines want into their
equipment when it gets to the mines.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, Dr Plush. There being no further questions, we would like to
thank you very much for your attendance here today.
Dr Plush: I read in one of the transcripts that you were looking for the paper for the disparity
between Australia and the US. I have it here if you would like it to be tabled.
CHAIR: Thank you.
Dr Plush: That was October 2010.
CHAIR: Thank you. We will take that document as tabled. Our next witness, Dan O’Connor,
has been taken to hospital and we wish him a speedy recovery. I would now like to call Mr Neil
Whittaker.
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Public Hearing—Inquiry into Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
WHITTAKER, Mr Neil, Private capacity
CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Whittaker, for making your time available and for the submission you
have made to the committee. For the record, could you please state your name and the capacity in
which you appear before the committee.
Mr Whittaker: My name is Neil Whittaker. I am here for technical content as a technical expert.
I have been in the industry for 40 years. I would like to bring some technical aspects to the inquiry.
CHAIR: Thank you. Would you like to make an opening statement and then we will ask some
questions?
Mr Whittaker: Thanks for the opportunity to share my longwall knowledge with the committee.
I have read many of the submissions and listened with great interest to the topics covered. I am
pleased that there are others out there who have the same passion about the coal industry as I have.
I suppose it is easy to get blinded by the romanticism surrounding underground miners, being in a
dirty job done by skilled people, salt of the earth individuals. I think Brian referred to it as there is a bit
of bravado about underground mining.
CHAIR: ‘Men’s men’, I think.
Mr Whittaker: In reality, the people who work in modern mines these days are from all walks
of life. With many of the career miners a lot of the skills have been lost—good housekeeping skills
and general talent on how to manage longwalls have been lost. Modern longwalls are reliant on
technology, which is monitoring and automation. Automation, if it is working, theoretically keeps the
workforce out of the dust while the coal is being cut, but dust is still made and it will settle somewhere
until it is disturbed back into the air when workers are present. Brian referred to wetting the dust. That
is fine, but it dries out again as well and that can cause an issue on its own.
We need to be treating the dust as a contaminant in the environment and not be making it in
the first place and then manage it as a contaminant or a hazard further after that. Too much reliance
is placed on the manufacturers by the coal companies to supply the equipment to be fit for purpose.
I wrote that in bold here because it is just a statement—is your equipment fit for purpose? It is an
excuse and someone to blame when issues arise in mines. I suppose that is the reason why none of
the major equipment manufacturers have made any submissions to this inquiry. That is why I thought
I would lend myself to answer any questions you might have.
Everyone’s attitude to dust needs to change. We all have to try harder, whether it is mine
owners, individuals, government bodies or equipment manufacturers. I can speak with some
knowledge regarding the manufacturers, having worked as a product specialist developing machine
prototypes and applying these machines on the longwall itself.
Mine owners specify the machines’ operational parameters and technical abilities. This will
often encompass dust control, usually utilising water, but these are always optional selections in
electronic parameters. The off button is often chosen. Quite often water sprayers are in the wrong
place anyway or are ineffectual because of air flow. Brian touched on that too. It is a little bit like
sweeping up leaves in a gale. The truth is no-one likes water on the longwall because it means that
people get wet. It makes conditions poor on the roadways and is considered a nuisance in its own
right.
As I stated in my submission, we need to control dust at source and stop any accumulation of
dust. After the coal cutting machine, most of the dust on the longwall comes from the movement of
the roof supports as they lower, advance and sector the roof—crushed dust; this is what Brian alluded
to. Controlling this dust is one of the keys to the reduction of dust on the longwall and, as such, world’s
best practice for looking after that dust from the roof supports, the chock, the shields—they have
various names—needs to be implemented. It is also very easy to generalise the dust issue. The truth
is that longwalls are condition specific as we are dealing with nature. I will do my best to answer any
questions you might have in a manner that is understandable to everyone.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Obviously I have not seen a longwall in operation but have been to opencut mines and have seen those. Can you practically step me through what the ideal longwall mining
environment would be from your perspective with regards to dust suppression and dust mitigation?
How would you make that work?
Mr Whittaker: I would put the sprays on the shields in the correct place; that is important. But
we have already talked about the speed that the longwalls run at being a cyclic process. We all
understand that it is tied in with production and that it has to be, but the most effective longwalls are
the ones that cut slower, do not produce the dust in the first place, produce consistently rather than
very quickly for a short length of time and then do not run, for whatever reason, for sure.
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Mr SPRINGBORG: You are saying to cut slower, produce less, but produce more consistently;
so a larger volume over a longer period of time which actually adds up to and is more superior than
a greater volume over a shorter period of time?
Mr Whittaker: Correct.
Mr SPRINGBORG: What you are suggesting would not have a negative financial impost on
the mine owner or operator?
Mr Whittaker: Yes, it would, I am sure it would. I just answered your question directly, that was
all. To cut slower produces less dust; that would be ideal.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Is that more sustainable than cutting at greater volume over a shorter
period of time? Is it possible to make that work so that you could get a reasonable financial outcome
as a mine operator?
Mr Whittaker: It is possible but it would not happen, because they would just speed up the
operation as more coal means more profit.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Conceivably, or feasibly, we will not be able to do what you believe is best?
Mr Whittaker: No, I think it would be financially constricted.
Mr SPRINGBORG: In the absence of that, what is the next best option?
Mr Whittaker: Putting the water in the right place.
Mr SPRINGBORG: As you said earlier?
Mr Whittaker: Yes, do not produce the dust in the first place.
Mr SPRINGBORG: What do you find with mine operators and managers with regards to best
practice dust suppression? Do you find that there is a willingness to learn from others and to adopt
those sorts of things?
Mr Whittaker: To a point, yes. But there are always sticking points in implementing that
because the individuals have their own ideas at certain mines, and it is hard to get consistency across
different departments in my experience. Things will be overruled by different departments.
Mr SPRINGBORG: From what I can gather, it is not only the reticence on the part of the mine
owner or manager or operator but also those working at the coal face or the longwall. There is also
an element of reticence on some of those workers as well, because of what they see as the benefit
but also the impediment that comes from more water in that environment?
Mr Whittaker: Yes. And just to elaborate on that, for abstract reasons, what works at one mine
may not necessarily work at another, whether that be air flow, a different type of coal, a drier coal, a
different conveyor. There are many variables on the longwall, and that is why it is hard to deal with
generalisations.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Do you have a view with regards to the regulatory environment at the
moment in Queensland which has gone from rules and requirements that are set but in which the
enforcement and compliance is left more open to industry than in the past when there was more
intervention and oversight from the department?
Mr Whittaker: Yes, because everything is risk based these days. We are not dealing anymore
with legislation that is in place. It is not really my specialist subject, but the original mines and quarries
act, every one of those lines, those statements, those acts, was brought about by the death of men.
To wipe that away and, ‘Oh, we’ll do a risk assessment’ has really always flown in the face of where
we need to be. It is not my specialist subject, but I do think that personally.
Mr CRAWFORD: You mentioned the chocks. I know they get referred to by different names.
You mentioned when they are operating how there is a lot of dust when they come down and move.
For the purpose of our records, because I think we heard before it was somewhere between 20 or
30 per cent of the dust—
Mr Whittaker: 53 per cent of the sheer, the rest are from—
Mr CRAWFORD: As we have not seen a longwall operating in front of us, can you walk me
through that and why so much dust comes from the chocks?
Mr Whittaker: Imagine 200 shields on a longwall. Every cycle, which is every metre of coal
that is cut, each of those individual roof supports lowers, advances and sets. When that sets, it puts
1,000 tonnes into the roof. Any coal that is left on the top of the shield from the last cycle, or indeed
the coal on the roof or the stone in the roof, will get crushed. It gets pulverised and pounded. It is an
area that receives little dust suppression just because men are walking under that. Basically, if there
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sprays on there you will get wet. We talked about best practice earlier. Some mines—and there are
a few—have sprays up on the canopy—the big piece of steel that touches the roof—to keep that area
wet so that it does not make that level of dust. That is a good thing, but not many mines will actually
run with that. There are lots of technical things that need to be looked at and collated and have a
holistic approach on the longwall to stop making that dust at source. The source for the shields is that
break from the roof. Do not forget that the sides of these shields are also plastered with the same
crust or wet dust that the coal steam machine is throwing off as well. It is actually a live experience
that I have observed for 40 years really. Dust on the longwall is still not being holistically addressed.
Mr CRAWFORD: How far do they lower down before they move faults?
Mr Whittaker: Once again, that is optional. You can actually scrape them in, which is
reasonable practice, but we say that that is dusty too. You get into semantics here and preferences
at one mine from one mine to the other. It is hard to generalise unfortunately. It is a very mine-specific
subject.
Mr CRAWFORD: In your submission you said that it needs to be in the design from scratch,
integrated into the system, not fitted as on optional extra, and not readily by-passed and turned off.
Can you elaborate on what you mean?
Mr Whittaker: Any water on the longwall can be turned off. It is often turned off because with
lots of longwalls the mines struggle to get the supply for the longwall as well. As I said, the water is
annoying to the men, the men will turn it off. It is an optional add-on. You can turn the water off. You
can turn it off in the parameters, because they are not automatic. In the ideal world the machine is
coming past the coking machine and you would have three of the shields that spray at the same time.
That is the ideal scenario, but some mines have that and a lot of mines do not. It is best practice, it
has been made available. If they do not use it for a whole host of reasons, whether that is because
the guys get wet or it is just not in the parameters, nobody is managing it, nobody really cares because
there is no issue. They are not being sanctioned for dust this month. I think Brian alluded to that when
he was talking about it only being an issue until it goes away and then it becomes an issue next time
when the monitoring is showing up that there is an issue.
Mr CRAWFORD: If I went and out bought a longwall tomorrow, I think they are $400 million or
$450 million and a bit of short change, would it come already with any sort of dust mitigation, any
sprays or anything built in, or do I have to put that in myself?
Mr Whittaker: You would have to specify exactly what you want, or there would be some
provision for water, there would be some pipes in there and some sprays that the manufacturer did
before for another customer. But unless specific questions are asked and costed for, it will not be
there and any testing of said equipment will not occur unless it is paid for. There is very little testing
done these days on that style of machine. The manufacturers view it as they will make the equipment,
let us say it is in Germany or China or the UK, to its base function which is to mine coal. It is up to the
countries of destination to customise that equipment and make it less dusty, if you like. You probably
will not see that written down anywhere, but that is the way it runs.
Mr KELLY: On the second page of your submission you talk about differing systems used in
various countries around the world and note that France and Germany were very good. Could you
step us through why they were very good? What were they doing differently and what can we learn
from those countries?
Mr Whittaker: Historically, the countries that mined the coal originally had as part and parcel
of that research establishments. Lots of money was put into establishing good practice, good
procedures, and that was also introduced into the legislation. The UK one was the SMRE, Safety and
Mines Research Establishment. There are some in America, but I think resources would have been
higher in the countries that had the best results or the better conditions.
Mr KELLY: But are there practices and things they are doing there which we should be doing
but are not?
Mr Whittaker: It is hard to be specific. I think we always appear very safe here because
everything is risk-assessed and risk-based, but you can only do a risk assessment on the facts that
are available for you. You cannot know what you do not know, and that is what I see as the downfall
when it is risk-based. There is not the expertise to take the risk assessment to the level it needs to
be taken.
Mr KELLY: In the last 10 years money has been spent on the design modifications of
prototypes of shields, of roof supports, and all have some sort of dust suppression system. There is
not a mine in Australia that fully utilises that?
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Mr Whittaker: Correct.
Mr KELLY: Why is that the case? If the systems are there, why are they not being utilised?
Mr Whittaker: Because the operators get wet.
Mr KELLY: So is management responding to concerns of the employees or—
Mr Whittaker: It would be a little bit of both, but the employees not wishing to get wet because
it is unpleasant. Think of these guys who are in these conditions for 12 hours. They are not short
shifts anymore and that is a lifestyle choice. Also when we talk about being a management issue,
when this equipment is originally specified there is not much emphasis on what are we going to do
about dust. I have seen it at a few coal companies. They have mentioned it and been semi-serious
about doing something about it, but by the time it gets down to being seriously discussed you have
missed the boat on the design. These things have already been made. You cannot introduce major
design. It tends to be a bandaid after that. Where should we put the water? Where should we put the
sprays? We will have to put them here where we always put them. We need to look at the big picture
and a lot of research needs to have gone into it, and we do not do that here. We have no big research
establishments to do the tests that Brian wants to do.
Mr KELLY: So in your view a body like Simtars does not fulfil that role?
Mr Whittaker: No.
Mr KELLY: Thank you, Chair.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. I would now like to go to council assisting.
Mr McMillan: I have no questions at this stage, thank you, Madam Chair.
CHAIR: Mr Whittaker, can I thank you very much for giving your evidence this afternoon. We
would now like to break for afternoon tea for 30 minutes and we will recommence at three o’clock.
Proceedings suspended from 2.31 pm to 3.02 pm
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BOLGER, Ms Catherine, Director, Collieries’ Staff and Officials Division, Association
of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia
GUY, Mr Adam, Legal Officer, Collieries’ Staff and Officials Division, Association of
Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia
CHAIR: Members of the gallery, if you are finding it hard to hear, will you let me know, please?
I now welcome representatives from the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and
Managers Australia, Collieries’ Staff and Officials Association via teleconference. I thank you for
making yourselves available and for your submission to the inquiry. I would now like to invite you to
make an opening statement to the committee, please.
Ms Bolger: Thank you, chair. I will start off. I would like to thank the committee for the
opportunity to address the parliamentary inquiry. Firstly, I would like to say who we are and who we
represent. We represent a group who are known as staff in coalmining and they are employees who
work in first-line supervisory positions called deputies and other supervisory positions as well as
people who work in planning, ventilation, surveying and a number of other jobs within coalmines.
In terms of what I wanted to bring to the inquiry’s attention today—I know that you have your
submissions in front of you—I want to focus on the issues that are of particular attention to those
supervisory groups of employees who are really responsible for managing safety and dust within a
coalmine. To start off, I would like to indicate that the association supports the submissions that have
already been made by the CFMEU and also, as you can see from our submissions, the majority of
the recommendations of the Monash and other inquiries. I would also like to advise the committee
that, sadly, the first one of our members this year was diagnosed with CWP. He is in a role of a
deputy, or that front-line supervisor who I spoke about, and he works—or had worked—in an
underground mine in Queensland.
In putting together our submissions, we have sought input from our members throughout
Queensland and New South Wales. As I said, I wanted to focus just on three particular issues: firstly,
the role of statutory employees, such as deputies and their role in managing safety and managing
dust; the issue around their statutory reports and what gets done with those; and I would also then
like to talk about what we think should be some changes to the workers compensation system. They
are the three areas that I wanted to particularly bring to your attention today.
As I said earlier, the role of the deputy is, among other things, to supervise production but also
to manage safety and manage dust. In terms of any recommendations that the parliamentary inquiry
may recommend, it will be the role of the deputies to make sure that any regulatory or other changes
are implemented at the workplace. Within a coalmine, the mine manager is really responsible for
production and they, of course, want to produce as much as possible. They, of course, are under
pressure from their corporate offices to increase production—within safe limits, of course. They then
direct that production plans be drawn up. This is then where the conflict that we have spoken about
in our submission arises—that there is this essential conflict between getting as much production
happening as possible and doing it in a safe way. Those statutory positions often find themselves in
a situation where they feel that they need to stop production and withdraw people from a particular
area, particularly in returns, because the dust levels are too high. Our members report to us that,
when those circumstances happen and they stop that particular work, the difficulty they face is, at the
current time, they do not have any independent means of instantaneously determining whether the
dust is too high; they simply have to rely upon visual cues and their experience.
In terms of the recommendations that we have put forward, particularly recommendation 11,
our members who are deputies say that it would be a great leap forward if, in the same way that they
can instantaneously monitor gas wherever they are in the mine, that the regulations would be
changed and it would be mandated that each deputy should also have an instantaneous dust monitor
that they also have available to them then and there. That would then reduce that conflict that we
have referred to in our submissions.
Another issue and recommendation that we are seeking is recommendation 10—that, once
again, where there is this conflict in the interim between production and safety, at the moment, the
only way that that is reconciled is by a discussion between the supervisor and their supervisor. At the
end of the day, with no independent basis upon which they can say that dust is at a certain level,
sometimes deputies find themselves in the position where they are directed to continue work. One of
the recommendations we are seeking is that a confidential, anonymous hotline be established so that
people who have concerns about dust and cannot resolve them within the management structure at
their organisation have the ability to seek external help and report that and that the external regulator
would be able to come in and do a spot audit.
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CHAIR: That would be to the mines department? To the Mines Inspectorate?
Ms Bolger: It could be to the mines department but you will see that we have put in our
recommendations that an independent regulator—independent of the department—be established,
much like Coal Services in New South Wales. I think that is recommendation 2. Potentially, it would
go to them.
The second issue that I wanted to raise is that, with every shift and the role of deputy, they do
a written report at the end of each shift. It is called a statutory report. In that report they will comment
on things that are relevant to safety but they will also comment on dust. Queensland deputies are
reporting to us that they are regularly putting in their statutory shift reports that there is an issue, or
an exceedance of dust and that there is no system in place for anything to be done about their
reports—that as far as they understand, nobody takes up and nobody follows up their reports. There
is no cohesive response when, shift upon shift, they are reporting that there is an issue with dust.
That is the other thing that I wanted to bring to the attention of the committee. We suggest, in
recommendation No. 9, that a dust management system specific to the area where they are reporting
be then established and, also, that those reports be reported as per recommendation 8 to the industry
health and safety representative and reported through to the relevant department as well.
The final thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is recommendations 14, 15 and 16 and
that is around what should happen for the sufferers of this dust disease. As we have outlined in our
submissions from page 7, currently, there is a 12-month protection from termination from the date of
diagnosis but, as we know with CWP, it may take a very long time for the full-blown disease to occur
and also for any workers compensation claim to be settled.
We know also that, with people in roles like deputies and other roles, they are very
industry-specific skills. They are highly skilled employees, but it is extraordinarily specific to
coalmining. It is very difficult to get a job elsewhere outside of coalmining if you are terminated. We
are seeking, as I have indicated in recommendations 14, 15 and 16, that, firstly, the prohibition on
being terminated should be extended until the workers compensation matter is formally settled or
decided and, secondly, that an industry-wide fund be set up. That model could either look at the New
South Wales model of Coal Services or also in America. We do not have a strong view on which is
the best, but they are the two models that could be looked at. They were the three key areas that I
wanted to particularly highlight from our written submissions.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, Catherine. In relation to that fund, do you support the CFMEU
position, which is 10 cents per tonne?
Ms Bolger: Yes, we are supportive of the CFMEU’s position.
CHAIR: I would now like to go to the deputy chair.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Catherine, for
the evidence that you have just given and your suggestions. My first question follows on from the
point you raised and the further clarification from the chair, and that relates to your recommendations.
I think there are around 15 with regard to the industry-wide fund for mine workers and the levy around
that. Would it be possible to utilise any existing mechanisms to do that? Is it possible that we could
use the infrastructure and the capability the likes of WorkCover Queensland, or do you believe it is
something that has to be done completely separately and autonomously?
Mr Guy: I think in this situation, due to the nature of the industry and history before it and other
models that exist overseas such as the American model and the one that I am not familiar with, the
New South Wales model, an industry-specific fund would be the most appropriate way of ensuring
that there is a long-term and viable method of compensating workers suffering from CWP. That would
be our view on the matter.
Mr SPRINGBORG: What we are talking about here is people who fall through the cracks of
qualifying for WorkCover payments in Queensland.
Ms Bolger: That could be the case; that is right, yes. They may have it in early stages, but
they may not be impaired to such a level that WorkCover would ordinarily compensate for, however,
they were unable to get another job.
Mr SPRINGBORG: As we understand it at the moment—and we may have to be corrected on
this—those who have been diagnosed with CWP who were working in the industry at the time still
remain employed in the industry. Are you aware of any who have been terminated as a consequence
of their diagnosis to date?
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Ms Bolger: I can only talk in respect of our members. As I indicated, we have had one member
who has been diagnosed and he is still working, however, as you would be aware he has been
removed from his usual occupation and moved to above ground where there is less dust.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Has that particular person suffered a financial consequence? Have they
been moved sideways into another job with the same remuneration package, or is it a lesser
package?
Ms Bolger: I would need to get back to you on that. I am not aware of that.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Would you be able to do that? Of course we do not want the name of the
person, obviously, for privacy. We understand and respect that absolutely, but we would be most
interested to know. Because the evidence that we have generally received from mine owners and
managers is that they are cognisant of the need to support their workers who are diagnosed with
CWP and put them in a less dust-exposed environment, which should be the very minimum they do
for them.
With regard to CWP, it is only one of a myriad of coal dust diseases or dust diseases which
miners are exposed to or susceptible to, and you have mentioned silicosis and all those sorts of
things. Does it then stand to reason that the scheme that you are advocating should also apply to
coal industry workers who find themselves in a similar circumstance to CWP sufferers who would be
able to access such a scheme? I hope I made that clear enough.
Ms Bolger: I understand what you are saying, and that makes sense. You are saying that no
matter what the cause or if it is related to work, that it should be applicable to them. That makes sense
because coal dust is not the only thing that they are exposed to underground.
Mr SPRINGBORG: That is right. As we know, I think there are three different types of
pneumoconiosis, whether it be asbestos, silicosis, coal workers pneumoconiosis, at least two of those
are obviously high risk or high susceptibility amongst coal workers. So we just need to get some
clarity around that because there may be hundreds of other people who suffer the myriad of
dust-borne diseases who work within the industry as well.
I have another question relating to your submission on page 6. It probably relates also to what
you said earlier on, and I hope we have the same pagination here. We are talking about the same
sort of thing where you are talking about an organisation to oversee data collection and all those sorts
of things. Specifically you do mention on page 6 a concern that your members have with regard to
retribution and reprisal if they raise issues of concern around safety in the mine relating to respirable
dust exposure or probably generally dust exposure. Can you give some examples of what those types
of retribution and reprisal are?
Ms Bolger: Yes. Obviously some of the people who have provided us with information in
respect to this still work within the coalmining industry, so they have asked that the information they
give be confidential. But I can talk in broad terms.
Mr SPRINGBORG: We could do it at the end of this so we do not disrupt people.
CHAIR: At the end of the session we will go into private session and we will come back to that.
That means that the evidence that you will be giving to the committee will not be heard by anyone
else except for Hansard and for the committee members and it will be held confidentially by the
committee.
Mr CRAWFORD: I am interested in some statements you made on page 7 of your submission
when we talk about contract staff. We heard a number of employees across a number of mines over
the last month or so talking about what would happen to contract staff out there if they spoke up or
even if they asked questions. Most of those employees were obviously driving machinery and the
like, but I am interested to see whether you had any issues with your members, be it deputies or
supervisors, in relation to witnessing any of that behaviour or having any of that applied to themselves.
Ms Bolger: Yes, our members have witnessed it. The issue with people who are not
permanent employees but are instead contractors is that if they do raise issues, generally the next
shift they just happen not to be there. So it makes it very difficult and it is sort of well-known within
the industry that you are in a more vulnerable position if you are on contract versus being a permanent
employee. In New South Wales for statutory positions, those ones I talked about, deputies in New
South Wales under managers, the regulations say that they must be permanent employees of the
coalmining operator except by exception, if you like, and they have to seek exemptions from the
department for those circumstances where they are not permanent employees. Our membership has
had the same experience as the other people who have spoken to you about that.
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Mr CRAWFORD: In Queensland we still have a number of deputies and supervisors and the
like that are on a contract basis; is that correct?
Ms Bolger: Yes, we do.
Mr CRAWFORD: Have you noticed a change in New South Wales since that change was made
down there?
Ms Bolger: It is interesting, because the change was made before the boom and so it has
seen its way through the boom and beyond the other side. What I have noticed is that issues are
more consistently raised in New South Wales. Our organisation gets fewer telephone calls from
people in those permanent roles in New South Wales than we do from Queensland. We do get
telephone calls from members in Queensland asking for assistance who are contractors to say, ‘Look,
here is the situation. Here are my views. How do I manage this going forward?’ We do notice a
difference in terms of the calls for assistance we get from Queensland versus New South Wales.
Mr KELLY: I am also interested in page 7. At the top of that you talk about people being
terminated after raising safety concerns but not terminated as a result of that, but often other
performance issues are identified and acted upon. Does the union have any data in relation to that
issue? Is there anything that you can table to support those claims?
Ms Bolger: We do not have data, but what we have is experience. The experience is that
often it is that situation we talked about where there is a conflict between the front-line supervisor and
their next level up about whether they should stop work or not, that that has then manifested itself
into a personality conflict as well. Because from a supervisor’s supervisor perspective they are
challenging them and saying that they have got it wrong, and then what we have seen is that all of a
sudden, where there have been no performance issues in the past, there are performance issues in
relation to relatively small matters but they are being taken up with vigour. I do not have data around
it, but what I do have is that experience where it has started with a clash, if I can say that, about ‘We
want to stop production and pull people out of here.’ ‘No, you can’t. It means we’ll be behind.’ ‘Yes,
we have to.’ It is that clash, which I think we said in our submission somewhere has come very close
to physical blows in respect to one of our members. It is that clash that then we have seen start that
process.
CHAIR: So they have been ‘stitched up’, in other words, Catherine?
Ms Bolger: I think that is how our members would view it, yes.
Mr KELLY: They are in a difficult situation because they are obviously in the mining
environment. They are affected by the dust levels and presumably the people that they supervise
would look to them as having some managerial authority to be able to deal with these things. But
what you are saying is that in reality once they report them up, if that is not acted upon they have very
little managerial authority; is that correct?
Ms Bolger: That is almost correct. They do have the capacity to stop mining then and there,
which they do do, which then sometimes is okay but in the majority of times leads to conflict. But then
on an ongoing basis when they do report it in their reports, it is that mechanism that there is nothing
in place to follow up, and some of our members in underground mines in Queensland say that they
are reporting that each and every shift.
Mr KELLY: On page 5 of your report the way I would summarise it is you talk about effectively
there is a culture of, rather than looking for systemic issues to try and resolve it, there is a desire
almost to blame the employee for the problem and deal with it in that manner. Do your members
report being drawn into that culture of being encouraged to look for faults with the employees rather
than looking for systems solutions to this problem?
Ms Bolger: They do absolutely feel that pressure and they are quite frustrated. They are very
keen for some systemic resolution of this and to play a very active role in that but are very frustrated
that, instead of that systemic approach, it is that constant conflict with production and production
levels.
Mr KELLY: Does your union cover scientific staff who work in laboratories attached to mines?
Ms Bolger: It does. There are not that many of the labs left but, yes, it does.
Mr KELLY: We heard some evidence at a previous inquiry from a laboratory assistant about
the exposure that she felt she was getting to dust through her duties in collecting samples, et cetera.
Do any of your members who work in those scientific roles express similar views?
Ms Bolger: I am happy to take that away and consult with them on that.
CHAIR: If you can take that on notice, that would be good.
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Mr KELLY: On page four of your submission you say that the change in the Queensland
regulation would also be required to specify mine sites’ monitoring and reporting requirements and
frequencies. Can you give us a view from APESMA’s perspective of what those reporting
requirements should be and how frequently mine sites should be inspected and monitored?
Ms Bolger: Yes. I am just looking to which paragraph you are on?
Mr KELLY: It was the third paragraph, page four.
Ms Bolger: This could be looked at in two ways. Some of our submissions overlap. At the
moment, if I can just think of that gap, in a mine each deputy has a gas monitor that sits on their hip,
and throughout their shift they regularly check gas levels and also check gas levels elsewhere
throughout the mine. Our primary position is that we see no reason why there could not be a similar
monitor for dust. We understand that Xstrata, for example, has introduced one particular monitor for
dust but has not given it to deputies. They have given it only to the deputy supervisors. There is only
one of those monitors per shift and, unfortunately, it has not yet been developed to a stage where it
can go into all areas of the mine. The technology is getting there, but it is not widespread. Our first
position is that we need instantaneous ones. In conjunction with that, we also need regular other
monitoring that can be done by independent people. In that paragraph we in particular talk about how
often per shift should deputies be required to check dust levels. In other areas there is a requirement
to check gas X times per shift. It should be a similar requirement. I do not have a view as to what that
is per shift, but I could come back to you. Apart from the deputies, there is that random sampling
about which there should be requirements.
Mr KELLY: Are you saying that your deputies have the capacity to monitor gas in real time and
respond to that immediately but do not have that in relation to dust?
Ms Bolger: Absolutely. They can say then and there, ‘Let’s stop work here, gas levels are too
high, everyone out now.’ But they do not have that with dust.
CHAIR: If they had these instantaneous monitors for dust, would where they are in the coal
mine be important?
Ms Bolger: Yes. There are two ways of looking at it: if the deputies had one on their hip as
they do for gas, it would be required that they would go to the face, that they would go to the return,
that they go to a roadway X times per shift. Also, if there were some fixed monitors that would
supplement it, you would also have a view as to where they should be in the places where the higher
levels of dust would be.
CHAIR: I now turn to counsel assisting, Ben McMillan.
Mr McMILLAN: I refer to the section of your submission which starts on page four and which
deals with the increased work in returns. Can you elaborate a little on why your association has
concerns particularly about the level of regulation around coal workers working in returns?
Ms Bolger: Yes. I should say that I am not a coal miner, so I will do my best to explain it as I
best understand it. In a coal mine there is fresh air going into the mine that crosses the face, or where
the mining is happening—so it gets dirty if you like—and comes out via the return. The air that comes
out via the return is much more contaminated than the fresh air going in. On that basis, there is the
issue that, because it is more contaminated, you would restrict the work being done there. The return
air can get worse depending on what work is being done at the face, whether they are cutting through
stone, whatever is happening. Some time ago—and I still do not have a final answer on this—a lot of
the mine dust management plans used to say that there should be no work in the returns once
production is happening. That has changed in recent times and work is allowed there, but that is an
area where we think there should be a really good look at it and where there should be some
prohibitions on working in that return area.
CHAIR: Is that an area where they tend to put the contractors?
Ms Bolger: Yes, it is.
CHAIR: If the contractors make a complaint, they get shown the door. The contractors are the
ones who work in the returns. If they complain, they get shown the door and they bring in another
contractor the next shift. Is that right, or they could do that?
Ms Bolger: They could do that.
Mr McMILLAN: Is that as a consequence of the permanent staff declining to work in those
returns because of the high concentration of dust? Is that the reason that contractors tend to be put
in those areas?
Ms Bolger: I am unsure of that. I could not say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to that.
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Mr McMILLAN: Can I ask you a little more about the matters in your submission relating to
dust monitoring investigations? Mr Kelly, the member for Greenslopes, touched on this in his
questions. The committee has heard some evidence about the general approach in some mines to
exceedances recorded in personal dust monitors. At least one miner has given evidence to the
committee of his experience where he was asked what he did wrong to result in the higher level of
exposure that was recorded on his monitor. Is that approach of essentially looking first at what the
worker has done wrong something that is consistently reported to you through your members?
Ms Bolger: I have not heard that reported through, but our members try and take it as read. If
it is a reading, it is a reading. ‘Where have you been working? Okay, let’s look at that particular area
and let’s look at minimising it. If we can’t minimise it, then pull the people out.’ I think that criticism
perhaps is coming from other areas, not from the direct supervisors. Our members know which are
the more dusty areas of the mine and are very cognisant of it. They are aware, however, as you said,
that that systemic look is not happening, and that is their real concern. Rather than saying, ‘We have
had three people this week who have reported dust issues, let’s look at our plan, let’s look at changing
it, what do we need to do?’ The systemic view is not happening as much as I suppose you just said,
going back to the individuals and saying, ‘Well, why?’
Mr McMILLAN: I am paraphrasing page five of your report: ‘The operator will typically focus
their attention on how the conduct of the mine employee may have caused the dust issue rather than
looking to environmental factors.’ An example that was given late last month by a worker at a hearing
elsewhere was that the worker might be asked whether he stepped outside or stepped into a no-go
zone, therefore exposing himself to high levels of dust, rather than the question of why there were
high levels of dust in that zone in the first place. Is that the sort of thing to which you refer in that
paragraph?
Ms Bolger: Yes, that is. Sorry, I did not focus on the systemic stuff, but, yes, you are right.
Mr McMILLAN: In the next section of your submission you identify the need for complaint and
reporting protections. I want to deal with those separately, if I can. The first sentence of that paragraph
says, ‘At present there is no vision for the anonymous reporting of safety issues on Queensland mine
sites.’ The Chief Inspector of Coal Mines appeared before this committee in Mackay on 25 November
this year and told the committee that there is a service provided by the mines inspectorate which
allows for any mine worker in Queensland to report anonymously a concern about safety. I am
concerned about the disconnect that there would seem to be before that evidence of the Chief
Inspector of Coal Mines and your submission. Is it just not widely known that that exists?
Ms Bolger: I think there is clearly a disconnect, because not only is it not widely known but we
are unaware of anyone who has ever used it. I think that is a little bit like having a whistle-blower
hotline but nobody knows that it is there.
Mr McMILLAN: Does your association have any dialogue with the mining inspectorate about
safety issues on a regular basis?
Ms Bolger: Of recent times we have not. The forum in which to do that is the Mine and Safety
Advisory Council. That is what it is called in NSW, and there is an equivalent in Queensland. That is
probably the forum to do it, and we do not currently have a position on that committee.
Mr McMILLAN: In a similar theme to my previous question, you referred to the need for
particular protections for coal mine workers who raise safety issues. The Coal Mining Safety and
Health Act has such a provision in it. That is section 275A which is a very specific protection from
reprisal. It makes it a criminal offence for a person to cause, attempt or conspire to cause a detriment
to another person as a result of them raising a coal mining safety issue. First of all, are you aware of
an offence of that nature ever being prosecuted in Queensland?
Ms Bolger: Therein lies the issue. I am aware of that section of the Act; however, I not aware
that anyone has ever utilised that section of the Act.
Mr McMILLAN: When you made a submission essentially for protections for people who make
those sort of complaints, is it your submission that that provision is not an adequate protection, or that
it simply needs to be more well-known or well utilised by the relevant regulatory authority?
Ms Bolger: I think that it is a useful provision but it is an end-point provision. It is when
something has gone so wrong that that protection is there. I think what we are advocating is to try to
put in place some steps before we get to that point, before there is any retribution—hence the hotline
and hence the instantaneous gas monitors. There needs to be some way of resolving it before it gets
to that point. Our experience is—and I think this is an experience of many litigants—that, once you
embark upon litigation, that sometimes can be a point of a relationship breaking down. What we would
like to see is some steps put in place before you get to that point.
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Public Hearing—Inquiry into Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
Mr McMILLAN: Given that that provision also covers contract workers, subject to what you
have just said about the steps leading up to reprisal, are you satisfied that that is an adequate
protection for contract and permanent workers?
Ms Bolger: My dissatisfaction comes from the reality of the situation. I accept that this is a
reality of the situation for litigants generally. Once somebody does take some form of litigation then
there is a very strong view that, because the coalmining industry is a very, very small industry, they
will never get another job. Whilst I think it is a very important protection, I am really keen on trying to
explore what steps there might be before this protection would need to be enacted which would mean
that we would not have to go to litigation—hence the hotline and hence the instantaneous monitors.
Mr McMILLAN: When you say litigation, you are talking about a person making a complaint
that they are the victim of a reprisal for raising a safety issue. That is what you are talking about, is
it?
Ms Bolger: Yes.
Mr McMILLAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you about your recommendation and indeed support
for the CFMEU recommendation for an industry-wide compensation fund. I think the deputy chair
specifically asked you about this. Is it your submission that that fund would only need to cover those
who I think the deputy chair’s expression was ‘fall through the gaps’ in the workers compensation
system or do you suggest an entirely separate compensation structure specific to the coalmining
industry?
Ms Bolger: I think I will have to take that question on notice, if I may, and get back to you on
that because you have raised a very important point that I would like to clarify and get back to you
on.
Mr McMILLAN: Could you please and, when you do come back to the committee with your
response to that question, could you specifically consider why it is that a separate structure is
necessary in your submission and what the specific holes in the current workers compensation
scheme as far as you see them are such that a separate bureaucratic structure is necessary? Could
you endeavour to cover all of those questions in your response, if you could, please?
Ms Bolger: Yes. I have two questions (1) why is a separate structure needed from WorkCover
and (2) what are the holes in the current workers comp scheme which would necessitate a separate
or some extra protections?
Mr McMILLAN: Thank you.
CHAIR: Thank you very much. We will go into private session now.
Evidence was then taken in camera but later resumed in public—
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12 Dec 2016
Public Hearing—Inquiry into Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
ALLEN, Mr Bryce, Private capacity
ALLEN, Mrs Marie, Private capacity
HEMPSEED, Mr John, Private capacity
HUGHES, Mr Chris, Private capacity
LYON, Mr Peter, Private Capacity
CHAIR: John, I would now like to welcome you and thank you for being here today. For the
record, John, I was wondering if you could please state your name and the capacity in which you
appear before the committee.
Mr Hempseed: I am a retired AMWU member. I worked in Moura for 40-odd years. I started
in 1972 and finished in 2012. In all of that time I was in the open-cut, although I did go underground
a couple of times during that time as a delegate to look at issues that were underground et cetera
and commission hearings.
CHAIR: John, would you like to start by giving your evidence here today? Thank you very much
for this written evidence. Chris, we have some evidence that you have tabled as well. We will start off
with you, John.
Mr Hempseed: The first part of it was where we were and what we did. My occupation was a
maintenance fitter at Kianga coal, open-cut until the early 1980s. I then moved up to Moura when
they decided to shut Kianga down and they amalgamated both mines. I was employed then in the
same role but in a different location at the complex area of the open-cut.
The shifts worked over the period of time I was employed: I worked three rotation shifts. I
worked day afternoon and permanent day shifts on different occasions on eight-hour shifts. A
seven-day roster: when that came in in 1988, I worked on that old FEDFA style roster, which was
eight hours and then 12-hour shifts on a day-night rotation. I cannot remember when they came in,
but it was a bit later.
The areas worked: Kianga was maintenance and breakdowns on draglines—7900 dragline
and a 61R drill. We had a Cat D6 open-cab coal drill. We had Dart coal haulers, we had Cat loaders,
992s and 834 rubber-tyred dozers, Allis Chalmers HD41 dozers, Euclid coal haulers, water trucks,
Kenworth water trucks, lighting plants, generators et cetera—all the mechanical work associated with
a ROM dump station. Moura mine was much the same. It was a complex workshop, maintenance
and breakdowns on all equipment and machinery in the open-cut. We had coal trucks, dozers,
loaders, coal drills, lighting plants, generators, ANFO trucks, which we used for the explosives,
cranes, low loaders et cetera.
During my time I was out in the open-cut environment doing pit fitter duties for a number of
years at various times when I was employed at both places. In my time in the coal industry, there had
been many times when the question of coal dust and dirt dust had been related and talked about at
union meetings and in discussion between workers and the mine management at the time. In the
open-cut mining operations, depending on the conditions, the coal can be quite dusty and, depending
on wind velocity and direction, in the pit at the face, it can be very dusty as well.
Not all workers in the pit are in air-conditioned cabs. For example, in the early days, you had
an open coal drill, you had somebody standing beside where the coal was being drilled. The holes
were going down. You had somebody standing there shovelling the finds out of the road when they
came out. The groundsmen for production, they were out on their own standing in the pit. Maintenance
people may be in the pit as well with us, fixing machinery or whatever, but you also had surveyors
and those sorts of people wandering around taking levels of production et cetera.
We used water carts to try to quell dust levels, but they sometimes were kept too busy on haul
roads because of long hauls et cetera and possibly lack of water trucks. They were used to keep the
dust to a minimum on the roads so they could keep driving and the pit dust sometimes was let go a
little bit. You did not get the water trucks down there as often as you should.
Some coal seams are dustier than others. Some have a high moisture level and they do not
get too dusty but, some workshops, depending on their location in relation to other plants and the pits
and wash plants, could have excessive dust blowing through them depending on wind direction and
velocity. Haul roads past the workshop also create dust issues in and around workshops. Coal and
mud et cetera falls off vehicles as they are traversing those areas and then the following truck or
whatever runs up and down the road, crushes that up finer and then you get more airborne pollution.
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Wash plants: I have heard somebody say today that they are not naturally dusty places. I am
afraid I do not agree with that at all. Wash plants are naturally dusty places because of what they do.
The ROMs and dump stations, control towers, sieve bins make a lot of dust that is airborne, but by
far the dustiest places as far as I was concerned were around the reclaim tunnels, which was where
you had your coal dumped through a tower and then you had a belt line underneath and you would
have a plough, or some sort of machinery that would pull that on to the belt so it could be taken away
to another stockpile or up to the wash plant.
Wash plants produce lots of fine dust in their nature of crushing and washing coal. Conveyor
belts run everywhere. They produce fine crushed coal, because it gets caught in the tail drums and
head drums and underneath the conveyor belts itself. So it is crushed up. It is very fine. Some days
wash plant, dump station operators, maintenance people, they all look like they have been
underground for the shift. I know workers who have been working in wash plants and open-cut
workshops who have looked like underground miners at the end of the shift, depending on the task
and conditions that they have been working in for the day. Workers doing clean-up work at tail drums
and in reclaim tunnels especially come to mind. I fear some, if not all of these people, may face
difficulties in the near future.
The complex workshop at Moura had a belt line on one side of it and on the other side a bit
further away on the western side we had a haul reiner. So we had 60 to 70 yards on the eastern
side—we had a belt line that ran through the length of the mine—and on the other side we had a haul
road that did the same thing and that they traversed. The belt line also had a bitumen road beside it
that at some stages we would get the water carts to wash that bitumen road off, because in wet
weather we had to use that. For safety reasons we tried to keep all light vehicles on that road so that
they were not intermingling with the heavy equipment but, of course, they dropped all the dirt and
dust and coal and everything on there as well. We had to get all that washed down to try to get a bit
less dust blown into our workshops, et cetera.
This year, I lost a good friend who had lung problems. As far as I am aware, he worked most
of his working life at Collinsville mine. He was a maintenance person. He had an oxy trolley with him
for years as a constant companion. Did he die from black lung? He was never diagnosed with it, but
he had a lung issue obviously. I do not know what happened to him but I know that it was a lung issue
which killed him. Some workers in their later life are prescribed puffers because they have shortage
of breath issues, both smokers and non-smokers, but I would have termed it years ago as old man’s
asthma, as I heard it referred to by one doctor years ago. But I do not know whether with them that
is the start of a lung problem or not. Apparently, there are no X-rays that we know of in terms of
evidence about black lung or whatever.
The dust monitoring was done on a very spasmodic basis as far as I am concerned. Most of it
relied on some little things to be clipped on your shirt or on your collar somewhere. At the end of the
shift somebody would come and take it off you. A lot of times we asked for the results of those,
because they were not always given out on dusty days. I reckon the majority of times that I saw them
they were either out on maintenance days in the open-cut, on rainy days or when wet weather was
about, so somewhere where they would not indicate a true reading on a normal working day. We had
to ask for the results. Sometimes they were given to us. You could usually tell if you got the results of
the dust monitoring that they were supposedly reasonable dust levels, but if you did not get them you
could guarantee that they were not. Sometimes you asked, asked, asked, and eventually there was
another issue that took over, so they were left behind. We had a dust monitor station installed in
Moura. It was installed between the two schools to try and monitor the dust that came over the town.
I think it also had a second benefit where it used to monitor the fume levels that came over from
open-cut drilling, blasting, when they blasted the over burn. That is still there to this day.
CHAIR: Is that data uploaded to an EPA website?
Mr Hempseed: Not that I am aware of. Loading goes back to Anglo as far I am aware. Anglo
are the owner-operators of the mine currently. The closer the mining came to Moura town, with the
amount of dirt, dust, et cetera found on the houses—if you had outside barbecues, tables, et cetera—
the more frequently did the walls of the houses need to be washed. They also changed the method
too of open-cut mining from drag line to truck and shovel. The spoilage was higher with truck and
shovel, so with the dust being higher in the atmosphere and the prevailing winds it came to the town.
Contract workers or labour hire workers are not known for their willingness to speak out against
issues such as safety procedures and dusty conditions, no matter where they work—open-cut,
underground or wash plant—because they are glad to have a job and they keep their mouth shut.
They shut up and do not raise any issues for fear of losing their jobs. They do not want to make waves
because, mentally, it always leads to trouble. Every time you have an issue, they keep quiet, they do
not make any waves, and the next thing safety and conditions are going by the way, because there
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is a theory or an acceptance that, ‘These bunch of workers over here will work there, why won’t you?’
It happened with permanent people as well because they all had mortgages and stuff and they just
kept quiet. One bloke told us once that his aim was to go home at the end of the day and we said,
‘Yeah, well that is it, we all want to do that.’ He said, ‘Yeah, my repayments are worked out so much
per day that I work.’ So he had to he get in so much every day for his repayments. That is all he was
concentrating on. I do not say he would have been the only one, either.
In closing, I think that self-regulation of the coal industry by owner-operators has been a failure.
I have been around long enough to know that, what I saw in the Mines Department in terms of how
they used to come onsite, I do not think it was the perfect scheme with owner-operators having
control. It is totally worse. An independent body should have control of dust monitoring as well as a
few other items. To have had confirmed cases of black lung in the open-cut should not been a great
surprise to the industry or anybody who was thinking. This is just another tragedy that miners and
their families have to deal with by the occupation that they have. The town of Moura will experience
more dust issues in the future with the stockpile and load-out to service the Baralaba coal mine being
relocated just north of Kianga Creek. Depending on the prevailing winds and the velocity of the winds,
et cetera, that will be another source of dust, et cetera going back to the town. I know that people are
saying it will all be covered by dust suppression, but coal will be transported by road to the stockpile
area and dust suppressant cannot work 100 per cent of the time, especially during dumping and
loading operations which have to occur when they are loading trains.
CHAIR: Thank you very much, John. Chris, do you want to add anything?
Mr Lyon: I have a report. I worked in Moura too. My name is Chris Hughes. I worked at Thiess
too in Moura from 5 May 1982. I spent four years and three months underground. I got out of the
underground after the explosion. I refused to go back down. All my mates were down there the day it
blew up. I just thought, ‘Well, I lost all me mates, I am not going back down.’ I was employed as an
underground equipment operator or serviceman, servicing continuous miners, shuttle cars, conveyor
belts and drive heads to make sure everything was running properly. I left the underground mine after
it blew up on 16 July ‘86. After I left, I coughed up heaps of black phlegm for about two years. I just
kept coughing it up. I thought that I must have got a good gutful of dust down there. Anyway, I went
and worked on the service, mowing lawns. I was a TA for plumbers and carpenters for 12 months,
then I was transferred to the main workshop where I did 12.5 years nightshift until I left in 1998. In the
work shop I was employed as a trades assistant to fitters and boilermakers and was a truck driver
operating 200 tonne low loader transporting equipment, heavy machinery, all around the mine lease.
The work shop had opened solids facing east and west and the conveyor belt was on one side, all
road was the other side. I used to wash down machinery and wash out the workshop. Every day you
would come in and you would have to wash the whole workshop out, it would be bathed in dust. If it
was not blowing in from the conveyor belt, it was blowing in from the haul road. We tried our best to
keep it as clean as we could.
I left the coal industry after eight years and went back to Middlemount, hauling coal from Lake
Lindsay to German Creek for Wagners for 16 months. I often complained about the dust there. I was
only a contractor. When I complained to them about it they said, ‘Oh, Wagners do not worry about
dust.’ I said, ‘I do. I will call the OT if something is not done.’ I was in the water truck. They knew I
would speak up, to get the water truck in. At times you could not see even the bottom of the truck.
You go up and dump over the ROM or a stockpile, the dust would just be that thick. I could not even
see the log on the bonnet on that truck. I used to sweep the truck out every night. You come back the
next morning or get out the end of the shift and it would be all covered in dust again. It is that fine a
dust, you could not control it.
After I left Wagners I went to work for HSC for three or four months at Saraji when I left and
went back to Moura as a servicemen. I got injured and was sacked due to the injury I received. I went
and had a chest X-ray. I was still coughing up phlegm. I spent about an hour, two hours sometimes,
just coughing up phlegm as soon as I got out of bed. Anyway, I went and got a chest X-ray. I went to
see my doctor and I took him the X-ray and the report. He come back in the room and he said, ‘You
have got a slight bit of dusting on your lungs, I do not know how much.’ He just said that it was a slight
bit. ‘I will try and find out more information about it,’ and I will be able to talk to you the next time I go
and see him. It is about just trying to get to the bottom of it, because it would be a peace of mind to
know what is happening to us. That is it.
CHAIR: Thank you, Chris. Peter, do you have any evidence to give?
Mr Allen: I do not have anything written, but will make just a few comments about contractors
being too afraid to stand up to the other unions. We hear all the time that contractors will not stand
up because they are employed by the 4-hour cycle, or the day, and they know that if they say
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something on Friday they will not get the phone call to come back Sunday night. We see it all the
time. I get people ringing me all the time saying, ‘I have not been re-employed,’ or ‘I have been
classified as a manure stirrer, I’ve been speaking out, you know?’
Another issue is that wash plants are notoriously dirty places, despite what they say about a
wash plant, full of water, they are not. There are areas in there that would be worse than being
underground. As for monitoring, I am of the opinion that monitoring should be continuous, 24/7,
365 days a week. We hear stories about them doing monitoring when there is no mining happening,
or maintenance is happening, or when there is meant to be an inspection in a particular place
underground or in a plant above ground and the lads would spend the day before cleaning it all up,
getting it all nice and tidy and everything like that. Dust is the nature of the beast. I do not know how
you can stop it, it is everywhere. We now even hear stories from Aurizon train drivers. Aurizon wanted
to save a few dollars, so they took the seals out of the new train cabins or did not get them put in so
the cabins of the trains are not pressurised anymore. The dust sucks into the cabins of the trains and
those train drivers are sitting in the cabins up and down the track continuously, because there are
stories that they have saved a few dollars by not installing pressurised seals in the train cabins
anymore. It is just insidious. Like Chris said, the dust gets everywhere. I have spent my time working
in power stations. I can comment about his issues with phlegm—I know a bit about that—and silicosis.
Mr Lyon: I know about the trains though. You pass these coal trains from Blackwater to
Gladstone and just look at the dust coming off them.
Mr Allen: They have got the spray on them but, like John said, it is just everywhere.
CHAIR: Do you have anything to add?
Mr Allen: I was at Moura for 26 years as a plant operator. The dozers and things like that
around the draglines, they were full of dust. The doors were left wide open. They were just full. If you
shut the doors, which you did for the air conditioning, there was that much coal dust inside the damn
things you would be as black as anything, but you had to do to. You had to keep working the things
because the dragline could not sit on its arse while you waited for a set of filters to come down from
the workshop.
We had that. One particular night there, the one that I was operating, it went mental on me.
When I was bringing the bucket back into the pit, it just started generating its own power and it did
thousands of dollars worth of damage. I never heard the results of what they found caused it. I went
around inside the house and I could hardly see if there were any fires there. As I said, it tore the ropes
off everything. It made a bloody mess. But there was no consideration for the machinery. It did not
matter whether it was a loader or anything so far as filters or anything like that. They were never
changed.
Mr Lyon: These guys sit in these big machines all day in the middle of dust and if you start
whingeing about cleaning your air-conditioner filters every day—
Mr Allen: You are gone.
Mr Lyon: You are in trouble.
Mr Allen: Yes.
Mr Lyon: You are a troublemaker, yet they have a standard filter system on them basically that
is the same as Joe Blow driving his bulldozer up and down the road but, down in that situation, they
need an advanced system on them that can be replaced at least once or twice a day in some cases.
CHAIR: Chris, you have obviously been to the doctor.
Mr Hughes: I have been to the doctor and got X-rays.
CHAIR: Are you able to tell us what the diagnosis was?
Mr Hughes: I have not got the report. I do not know who wrote the report but I am going to try
to get further information. I will give it to my doctor and go further with it. I want them to send it to the
States and read, actually.
CHAIR: To Dr Cohen?
Mr Lyon: He has come and seen us and we are in the process of getting it through Maurice
Blackburn, our union lawyer, to get it sent overseas and try to get some assessment made on it.
CHAIR: Okay.
Mr Hughes: I would like to also mention that they say you get X-rays every five years. I worked
in the coal industry for 20 years. I do not remember getting a chest X-ray every five years and there
were a lot of other people in the same boat.
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CHAIR: John, did you get an X-ray?
Mr Hempseed: I had X-rays at the start of it. When the Coal Board medicals came in the five
years, yes, I had the first one. I possibly had the second one, but I do not remember having any more.
I know that we asked for one once and the word came back that around the workshop we were not
classed as in a dusty environment. They were going to give anybody who asked for one an X-ray, but
there were a lot of people who asked and never, ever got them. They were told to go and get them at
their own expense.
CHAIR: Bryce?
Mr Allen: No, we never got it. I have also sent my—that disk thing—across to the yanks to get
them to check it.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Either one of you can answer this
question if you choose. I was listening about the issues with regard to dust monitor results and many
of you may have had these experiences. Obviously, dust monitors are worn by mineworkers from
time to time to get results. We have been to mines where those results are displayed for the workers
to see on their board basically next to the tags and the other information—all of those sorts of things.
That never happened in your environment?
Mr Hempseed: I cannot remember it ever being on the board. We used to do it shift by shift.
You might be told that night shift got done last night—had the dust monitors on—in the start of your
shift report, or whatever. We might not ever have seen those. The ones that we had on when it was
our shift, yes. There might be 10 people on the shift and there might be only one dust monitor come
out. That bloke could be doing anything. He could be the bloke on the lathe for the night.
Mr SPRINGBORG: That is a similar experience? You are the current union representative,
Peter. Is that your experience?
Mr Lyon: I have heard stories that the guy who gets the dust monitor knows that he is in for a
cruisy night, because he is probably driving around in the service truck or something like that. I cannot
prove any of this. This is just what people tell me and I suspect that they would not be bullshitting me
too much. I would expect them to tell me the truth, to be honest.
Mr CRAWFORD: We had one chap tell us that he worked in the dragline and he was given a
dust monitor to wear while he was inside it for the shift.
Mr Allen: What was that, sorry?
Mr CRAWFORD: We had one chap tell us that he worked in the cabin of the dragline and was
given a dust monitor to wear inside for the whole shift. I think the results were pretty good.
Mr Lyon: The same as if you are driving around in the service truck.
Mr SPRINGBORG: What about the attitude towards dust, gentlemen? We have heard that at
the time of induction there had not been very much emphasis put on the dangers of dust as far as
causing respiratory problems for people working in the industry. If it was anything, it might be a
nuisance—it might impair your vision or something like that, but not necessarily that it was going to
cause you any other problems. Has that been the general attitude of dust until recent years?
Mr Hempseed: I would say that would be pretty much to it. It would be pretty spot-on. You
might have to take your glasses off to clean them, but there have been instances when a foreman or
whatever would come down and chastise people for not having their glasses on while they are doing
those cleaning operations. As far as the induction goes, as I said, I started in 1972 and my induction
was given to me at Moura by Anglo well after—
Mr Hughes: It would be Thiess Peabody.
Mr Hempseed: It was after No. 2 underground blew up, because it was raised in the No. 2
underground inquiry about the induction. An experienced miner was the person who had had an
induction. I was only in the gallery there, but I could not believe that people would make that
statement. We went back to our management at that time—it would have been BHP—and we said,
‘We have never had an induction.’ Then it took another couple of years before we were even given
an induction and it was pretty boring. We knew more than the person who was giving us the induction.
Mr SPRINGBORG: That is a common theme that you hear with regard to inductions into a
range of areas—that often the people who work there are the ones who know more than the one who
is doing the induction.
Mr Hughes: Also, regarding dust, there is more emphasis put on dust explosion than getting
black lung, especially in the underground.
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Public Hearing—Inquiry into Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
Mr SPRINGBORG: Yes. Basically, if it was going to have a physical—
Mr Hughes: They do not want the mine to blow up. They do not care if you are going to die
from black lung.
Mr SPRINGBORG: An explosion might obscure your vehicle, or whatever the case may be. I
have just one other question. Peter, you mentioned the issue of cutting costs and cutting corners with
regard to adequate filtration in the vehicles that are used. You mentioned Aurizon, I think you said.
Mr Lyon: In the trains, yes. Someone said to me recently that they have saved a few dollars
on the new model trains they have by not pressuring the cabin.
Mr SPRINGBORG: Sure. With regard to other equipment that is in the mine environment, you
mentioned that there are effective filtration systems that can handle that volume far better—the dustier
situations—but that is just not done, or they are not maintained well enough; is that right?
Mr Lyon: It just makes the equipment, I suppose, more expensive to buy and to operate.
Mr Hempseed: And bulky. With bigger filters, the machine is going to be bigger and bulkier.
Mr Lyon: You have to increase all your seals and your door seals. You have that many seals
around your cabin and they have like a negative pressure so that it forces the air out so it cannot
come in. That is a very expensive—
Mr SPRINGBORG: I have a final question on that. You would be aware then of equipment in
the mining environment where they have that retrofitted, better-quality stuff? You have never seen it?
Mr Hempseed: I have never seen it, but I am not saying that it does not exist. I am sure that it
would exist. The old story was that, if we have a problem, we will engineer the problem out. That used
to be give you a set of earplugs and a dust mask and a few other things. We always asked to have
the decibels on the one set of trucks that we had—they were deemed to be too loud. So they said,
‘That’s easy’ and they handed out a whole heap of earplugs rather than more of an exhaust pipe on
the thing and take the noise further back.
Mr Lyon: Lawrence made a comment before about coal dust in inductions. I liken it to
asbestos. Years ago asbestos was, ‘No, it’s cool. Don’t worry it. You can eat it. Chomp it down. The
blue stuff’s okay. The white stuff’s okay. Don’t worry about that. You can eat it.’ It went on and on and
eventually the people in James Hardie started to die of it. Then they had, ‘Hell, there’s something
wrong here’ so they left the country, did they not? That is when they set up their own fund, which they
are trying to rort, too. That is why I am another believer in having a separate fund for coalminers,
because we have been burnt there badly. Anyway, that is another matter.
CHAIR: You would support the 10 cents per tonne?
Mr Lyon: I would support 10 bucks a tonne.
Mr Hughes: One hundred.
Mr Lyon: Because it has to pay these guys out for the rest of their lives.
CHAIR: I would just like to go to counsel assisting now.
Mr McMILLAN: Thank you, chair. Apart from you, Mr Lyon, are the other three of you all
retired?
Mr Hughes: I was forced into retirement, yes.
Mr McMILLAN: Are you aware of the Queensland government’s campaign to encourage
retired coalminers to have chest X-rays? Have any of you seen any advertisements or any media
about that?
Mr Hughes: No, I have not seen any of that.
Mr Hempseed: I think I have heard about it, but I was waiting to get more information. That is
only just something that has come out very recently, is it not?
Mr McMILLAN: I want to ask you about that. Did you hear about it through the union or did
you hear about it some other way?
Mr Hempseed: I do not know. I could not tell you, to be honest. I would have to think about it.
Mr McMILLAN: Mr Hughes and Mr Allen, you have not heard of—
Mr Hughes: I am still waiting—
Mr McMILLAN: Mr Hughes, I think you said that the union was helping you to contact doctors
in the United States?
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Mr Hughes: I am going to but, with my X-rays, when I started hearing it on the news that blokes
working in the coalmines got black lung, and I have been coughing up phlegm, I said to my wife, ‘I’m
going to go and get an X-ray done just for peace of mind.’ That is why I went and got one done. Now,
it has come back. My doctor said that I have a slight dusting. I want to get it taken further and get it
read properly.
Mr McMILLAN: Did your doctor give you any information about workers compensation or the
possibility that you might have a claim for workers compensation?
Mr Hughes: No.
Mr Hempseed: The Queensland coal shop stewards—this is a roundabout way of probably
answering some of your questions—the Queensland coal shop stewards is a group of metalworker
delegates who get together twice a year. They meet in Rocky. This year, the last one was in
October-November—around Melbourne Cup day. We had Maurice Blackburn come to that meeting
with three representatives.
Mr Lyon: Jonathan Walsh.
Mr Hempseed: They talked about what to do in the industry and what to do and that. I was in
and out. I was a guest at the meeting but I was in and out of it. I did not get the full benefit of the full
time that these people were there. It may have been raised there. It may have been somebody talking
about that that was raised. That could have been where I heard about it, yes. Our union is doing
something to try to get its members to do that sort of stuff, yes.
Mr McMILLAN: I certainly do not wish to embarrass any of you, but it is important that the
committee understands the weight of the financial burden of those sorts of medical tests and so on.
In the absence of assistance from the union, would that be a challenge for you gentlemen to meet
those bills?
Mr Hughes: I think it would be for some people. I have been unemployed for six years. The
government is trying to get me a new job, but I do not know what they are going me to do yet, because
they have not worked out themselves.
Mr McMILLAN: Do you think that you would be able to pursue the medical tests that you want
to have if it were not for assistance from the union and elsewhere?
Mr Hughes: No.
Mr Hempseed: I think probably what Chris is saying probably would apply to a lot of people.
There is peace of mind. Whether they have the money to get that peace of mind to start with, whether
some people look at it in the long term, if they had a younger family, or whatever, or someone is at
the end of their working life, that might influence the decision on whether they do it or whether they
do not, or whatever. I know that, if I were a younger person and I had a young family to look after, I
would be chasing whatever I could and, if I needed assistance, I would be yelling out for it.
CHAIR: Bryce, can you tell us how much it costs for you to get your X-rays roughly?
Mr Allen: I think I paid $100 or something. They gave us a disk.
Mr CRAWFORD: But that would not have been read by a B Reader.
CHAIR: That would not have been read—
Mr CRAWFORD: That would not have been read by a B reader, would it?
Mr Allen: What?
Mr CRAWFORD: You would not have had that read by a B reader for $100.
Mr Allen: I beg your pardon? I have industrial deafness; I am half deaf.
Mr Hempseed: No, it would not have been read by somebody who knew what they were
talking about.
Mr Hughes: Mine cost $190.
CHAIR: I want to pursue this a bit further. You went to your GP; is that right?
Mrs Allen: He had coughing issues and everybody kept saying, ‘Go and get that seen to,’ so
he was told—I think it might have been by the union officer—that he had to go and get two X-rays,
one for the GP here to check and one which had to be put on a disc to go to America to be checked.
He has gone back to his GP and his GP said, ‘Yes, you have some scarring on your lungs, but that
is from your radiation.’ He had radiation treatment. But we do not believe that is true, because he had
radiation on his face and not his chest. The disc was sent to America, but we were just trying to find
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out how many months ago it was. It is at least four, maybe five months. We do not know what the
backlog is, how long normally you would expect to wait for the disc to be read. The cost was
something over $100, but because Bryce went on his own I do not know whether that was the cost
purely to have the X-rays done, or whether it was because we had to have a disc as well as a printable
X-ray.
CHAIR: The cost of the GP, was that just bulk-billed on Medicare?
Mrs Allen: The GP bulk-bills. The other expense was for the actual X-rays to be done.
CHAIR: Chris, what is your status?
Mr Hughes: I have paid all of my own medical expenses, my doctor and my X-rays. The doctor
was $112 and it was $190 for the X-rays.
CHAIR: A lot of people would not be able to afford that.
Mr Hughes: No.
CHAIR: And it would have been hard on you, being unemployed.
Mr Hughes: Yes, it knocked me down a bit.
Mr Lyon: That, in my opinion, is the cheap side of it. Who pays the cost when it goes to America
and how much does that cost? What we are doing now as a union is trying to get everyone who
comes to fill in an incident form or notification form for WorkCover so there is at least a notification
into WorkCover that they have been exposed to silicosis, black lung or asbestos so there is at least
something in WorkCover so hopefully we can come back and make a claim on WorkCover at a later
date. At the moment WorkCover do not accept these claims; all it is is a notification that you have
been exposed. I do not know if that is their charter, but they knock you back until you prove it.
CHAIR: Regarding the X-rays that have gone across to America, there has been no discussion
as to who pays for the reading of those X-rays at this point?
Mr Lyon: None at all.
Mr Hempseed: I think the CFMEU would be the best people to answer that because I think
they have done most of that.
CHAIR: The CFMEU pays for their members’ X-rays to be read. Will the AMWU pay for your
members or retired members; do you know?
Mr Lyon: That is a decision I cannot make.
CHAIR: No, I was just wondering.
Mr Lyon: We were hoping that WorkCover would pay. It is a notifiable incident, isn’t it? Dust
exposure is a notifiable incident.
CHAIR: I think that is the issue that we are trying to get to the bottom of right now.
Mr Lyon: I pay for my own X-rays, having asbestos exposure X-rays myself. Plus I have
silicosis and I dare say I have black lung.
Mr CRAWFORD: And if it is not read by a B reader, it is not worth the paper it is written on. That
is clearly the evidence we have heard from people who have sat in front of us so far.
Mr McMillan: I wanted to ask specifically about that. Obviously there is a campaign by the
CFMEU to ensure that coal workers have proper readings done by appropriately qualified experts in
the United States. Aside from the fact that the union is encouraging that and is paying for it, at least
for their members, do you gentlemen have faith in the system that has been established in
Queensland to monitor your health as ex-coal workers?
Mr Hempseed: With regard to five-year medicals, if you got hold of my records—and you can
use them, I don’t care—you could see how out of date I was for my five-year records. I am pretty sure
you will find there was seven years for one and I left, and the last one before I was due again. I know
we went for a big span and everybody was still saying, ‘When are we going to get the next lot of
X-rays?’ Or, ‘When did you go?’ We never could get an answer. They actually brought in a doctor
and his team and put them at Moura mine in an office, and they conducted a whole lot of Coal Board
medicals, less X-rays, that day or that week, whatever it was. There was a swag of them. That was
about 2008 maybe.
Mr Allen: We never got any. I never had a medical at Moura at all. We never had them because
they would not shut a dragline down for us to go up to the doctor. I was also a couple of years in the
underground mines rescue squad, and I never had anything for that when I was in that.
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Mr McMillan: Those of you who have chest symptoms now, do you have faith or confidence
in the medical establishment in Queensland to properly identify the cause of those symptoms and
give you some reliable information about it?
Mr Hughes: I would like to think I would in time, but I do not know how many doctors are
qualified in Queensland to read these black lung X-rays.
Mr McMillan: Why do you have concerns now?
Mr Hempseed: I had discussions with Brian Devlin from the safety side of our union the other
day when we talked about putting a submission together and I asked Brian, ‘What’s going to be done?
Who does anybody take it to?’ Not necessarily me, but who does somebody take an x-ray to now to
get it read properly? He said, ‘That is part of discussions that a number of people are having with
WorkCover.’ I asked a question straight after that. I said, ‘There’s a mine in the industry’—there is
probably more than one, but I know of a big one—’who self-insures, so who reads theirs? Are they
naturally going to follow on with what WorkCover does, or are they going to stick to their own direction
or whatever?’
Somebody made a statement before, and I do not know where it came from, whether it was
the panel or what, that every person who has been diagnosed with black lung has been moved to a
different spot where they are less likely to get any more dust exposure. I think you better check that
one up, because I believe there is one person who was not allowed back on a mine site. I think he
might have been a dozer driver in the open cut.
CHAIR: A permanent employee?
Mr Hempseed: Permanent employee. He was picture No. 16, I think, on his little badge.
CHAIR: Are there any other questions from council assisting?
Mr McMillan: No, thank you.
CHAIR: I thank you all for coming. Now I would like to call Jason.
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KEMP, Mr Jason, Private capacity
Mr Kemp: I have been in the open-cut coalmining industry for 12 years. I am the current lodge
president of the CFMEU lodge at Foxleigh. Most of these guys covered everything that I have here,
so there will be no surprises. I am not even sure if you will have anything for me. But dust in cabs or
poorly sealed cabs, the pressurisers in the cabs of machines do not work so you will get the dust in
there and you do not see it until it is stopped, but while you are working you will feel it in your eyes
but then you will see it settle, as dust does. That is quite a common thing, so the answer for that from
work is, ‘Just move that guy to a different machine. We won’t put him in that machine anymore
because he’ll moan about that.’ Another answer we hear is, ‘It’s a dump truck; it’s not a Ferrari. Why
does it have to be clean?’ Well, I sit in it for 10 hours—
CHAIR: Condescending.
Mr Kemp: Yes. I would reiterate that guys are scared to speak up, and it is not just the labour
hire or the contractors. There are permanents as well who are too shit-scared to say anything. They
all come to me because they know that I will say something or I will jump up and down or whatever,
but I do not know what makes it better coming from me because I still have to say, ‘Ted said this.’ So
they are going to speak to Ted anyway, but I suppose it is just breaking the ice for the guys.
I have actually done a chest X-ray. I doubt that it was read properly by a B reader, but that was
when I was working at a mine that also had an underground component to it. Because of the
underground laws and being a joint pit, that was why it was done. That was pretty well at the start of
my career. I had probably only been in the industry two years, so I am probably a lot luckier than most
guys in the open cut because there would be a lot that have never, ever had anything captured on an
X-ray.
CHAIR: Did you get the results of the X-ray?
Mr Kemp: I was a little bit young and dumb and all the rest, just keen. It was only just part of
my pre-employment medical.
CHAIR: But did they tell you?
Mr Kemp: They just said it was all clear.
Mr SPRINGBORG: It would have been misread.
Mr Kemp: Yes, it could have been misread, that is right. On another side of that, a guy that I
work with who I spoke to yesterday said that when he had his medical recently he ticked for the X-ray
on his medical form and they said, ‘You don’t require that; you’re open cut.’
Mr SPRINGBORG: When was that?
Mr Kemp: This was in the last six weeks, I think. I think the maintenance personnel have one
of the largest exposures to dust. They will be out doing a digger shutdown or whatever and you have
a truck driving past them every three minutes with dust coming up and the watering, in my opinion, is
not sufficient. We do not water to stop dust; we water to be compliant. There is a water truck driving
around, but the system that we use at my site is not effective. The reason it is not effective is because
we have had a lot of uncontrolled movements with trucks in the wet and instead of teaching us to
drive properly or hounding you to slow down, they have changed the watering. As I say, it is there
and people see a water truck, but is it effective?
CHAIR: What system of roads do you have in your pit?
Mr Kemp: What they do is they spot water and everywhere is centre-bunded, so effectively
you have two roads: you have an empty road and a loaded road. That has its own issues as well. If
we did not have centre bunds, you would be able to water continuously and you would have a dry
area in the middle and then you would be able to come back and water the middle area. But if we do
not have centre bunds, obviously when you do a risk assessment it ups the chance of having a
collision between truck and truck, so I think their main concern is more of a concern of truck-and-truck
than dust, and in the big scheme of things who is going to debate that. ROM areas, it is not really a
priority to get a water cart there because it is basically just normally a loader loading the bin or a
loader loading a truck to empty into the bin, so all the emphasis is to get the water trucks around the
digger areas because we cannot be slowing down the dig rates.
With the dust monitoring, as was said before, sometimes you do get the results back and what
the actual reading is. ‘This is the target; this is what it was,’ or whatever. I have known of some cheeky
critters out there who have gone and grabbed the dust monitor that they are meant to be wearing that
night and they have put it on the bin at the ROM and they have come back, ‘She’s all good.’ There
was nothing abnormal about it. I am not sure if it is all that accurate.
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Being in the position I am within the lodge, I am no guru on black lung but I have seen a bit
more exposure than the average coalmine worker. At my work people are very, very ignorant. I will
raise it at a pre start meeting. My supervisor said, ‘You hear about this and it is more the old guys
who have been in the system for years and years in America, and their standards are so low.’ I know
a little bit different. I know the counteranswer to that, which is that we are exposed more than anyone
else in the world at the moment.
Our mine has recently been sold, and I went through the process to chase up having my X-rays
done myself. When I spoke to the lady in the safety department—I cannot remember her exact role—
she told me that there are no concerns for dust at my mine site. I said, ‘Yes, but I dare say that if I
were to ask you the same question about Grasstree the answer would be the same; there is no
concern.’
Mr CRAWFORD: Where do you work, Jason?
Mr Kemp: I work at Foxleigh. It was owned by Anglo. A lot of the people in office positions are
across all three sites.
CHAIR: Who has it been sold to, Jason?
Mr Kemp: Realm Resources are the overall owners. There was a monetary company, Taurus,
who were the backers of the money. The company is now called Middlemount South and that is the
owner. There were no safety concerns at my work site. I thought that I cannot trust them all—
Mr CRAWFORD: The person that you went and saw—
Mr Kemp: It was a phone call.
Mr CRAWFORD: Okay, a phone call. She worked for?
Mr Kemp: Anglo. She is an occupational therapist—I have just remembered her role.
Mr CRAWFORD: Okay. So you are an open-cut miner working at an Anglo facility—
Mr Kemp: Yes.
Mr CRAWFORD:—who has asked for an X-ray and has been told that you cannot have one?
Mr Kemp: No. No, initially she told me that I did not need one. I assured her that every coalmine
worker in Queensland is entitled to have one.
Mr CRAWFORD: I am going to read you Anglo American’s submission to this committee. Under
‘Anglo American group open cut mines’ it states—
Where any employee at Anglo American group open cut mines express concerns regarding their respiratory health, these
employees are offered a chest x-ray as per the Coal Mine Workers Health Scheme’s ‘New Chest X-Ray Process’.
Mr Kemp: Yes. I was probably aware of that before her.
Mr CRAWFORD: I think you might have been.
Mr Kemp: I have asked the president of the German Creek lodge, ‘Have you not had many
guys go for an X-ray?’ He said, ‘Yeah, why?’ I said, ‘I was getting a little bit of curry. I was not being
cooperated with.’ Once I assured her that I was confident that I could, I received the paperwork in
about a week’s time. However, in saying that, that was around the time of the sale of the mine so I
have done nothing.
Mr CRAWFORD: For your records, they go on to say that all ex-employees are also entitled.
Mr Kemp: Yes, I got the paperwork last week. I will probably chase it up again.
Mr CRAWFORD: You did not know that, did you, gentlemen?
Mr Hempseed: Can I test that?
CHAIR: Yes.
Mr Kemp: I was going to tell these guys that later on. There are changes. If there is a visitor
on site, whether it be a district check inspector or someone from upper management, you will hear
someone maybe at the level of superintendent ask, ‘Is there a water truck in here,’ or ‘Should we be
doing this?’ OCEs are not consistent. I can talk about my own crew only. The guy on our crew is not
too bad. In actual fact, he is a labour hire OCE. There is another guy who will pull your show up. It is
too dusty and he will pull it up. They are guys in statutory positions. I have known of guys who have
been loading trains at the train load-out and the air con has been no good in a dozer so they will keep
operating with the doors open because they believe that they have to get the train loaded. Nothing
can stop the train being loaded.
CHAIR: That is because they cannot get on the line, isn’t it?
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Mr Kemp: I just say to them, ‘The train does not have to be loaded at all costs.’
CHAIR: I know, but isn’t that what they are told; that they can only get the train on the line at a
certain point?
Mr Kemp: Yes, because they will go empty and the company gets dirty if you are costing them
money. It is demurrage basically. I keep emphasising about the labour hire guys not speaking up. It
is not just dust issues; it is all issues including safety. As those guys were saying, too, no job
tomorrow. Another concern, as you guys were saying before, is that the CFMEU pays for CFMEU
members’ X-rays to go to the States but this thing is not discriminatory. Financially, where does it
leave guys who are not members?
CHAIR: That is right.
Mr Kemp: That is about all I have.
CHAIR: Are there any questions?
Mr SPRINGBORG: Mine were by and large answered by Jason and also by Craig’s inquiries.
Mr McMILLAN: I have one and it takes up Mr Crawford’s question. I want to read the section
on ex-employees in the Anglo submission to you. I know that you are not an ex-employee. It states—
Further to all of the above, Anglo American has recently instigated a process of offering chest x-rays for ex-employees who
have concerns regarding their respiratory health. As part of this process, it will be ensured that any such chest x-rays will be
read in accordance with the Coal Mine Workers Health Scheme ‘New Chest X-Ray Process’. Appropriate individual information
will be provided to the DNRM such that these can be subject to the second US reader process and the information captured
in the DNRM database.
Has your lodge been involved at all in publicising that to ex-Anglo workers?
Mr Kemp: No. Where I am, it is a very young mine. There are some older guys there, but I
suppose once someone leaves that is it; you dump them. It is a terrible thing to say, but we do not
really stay in touch with them or anything like that. We have not really had a huge attrition of
employees. The union as a whole at district level would quite possibly do that.
Mr McMILLAN: Has Anglo at your mine done anything to promote the notion that employees
who have concerns regarding their respiratory health will be offered a chest X-ray by the company?
Mr Kemp: No. As I say, I am the only guy I know who is chasing it up at all. There is a lot of
ignorance towards it. I said to Stephen Smyth that awareness is not very much out there, especially
in open cut.
Mr McMILLAN: You can have the best worker health scheme in the world but it is not terribly
effective if none of the workers know anything about it, is it?
Mr Kemp: No, that is right.
Mrs Allen: I just want to butt in and reiterate what I said before. Firstly, everybody is asking,
‘Are they offering people the facility to go and have an X-ray?’ Whether they do or they do not or you
pay privately, the situation is we are all being told that people here do not have the expertise to read
the X-rays. We can have a thousand people go and have X-rays but who is going to read them?
You asked the question before of the guests up here: ‘Do you have faith in your GPs?’ I myself
do not when Bryce’s GP said, ‘Yes, you have scarring on your lungs but it is from your radiation
treatment,’ when he did not have radiation treatment on his lungs. We can offer as many X-rays as
we like but who is going to be here to read them, and we cannot send thousands of discs over to
America. Like we said, Bryce has already been waiting for months and months for his results.
Basically, I want to reiterate what you said: do we have faith in the people reading the X-rays, whether
they are provided to ex-employees or you pay for it yourself? Are we just wasting our time getting
these X-rays?
Mr Kemp: For the CFMEU it all goes through Dr Cohen in the US. He will be here in February;
is that right?
CHAIR: Hopefully.
Mr SPRINGBORG: That is only a bridging process. We have taken significant evidence now
that there is a broad recognition of a complete failure in the system. The diagnostics are reading all
of those sorts of things. The issues of qualification and accreditation are now being worked through
to make sure that people are capable of seeing what they see and to report it so we know accurately
what is going on. That is a deficiency but it is being addressed.
Mrs Allen: I have faith that they know how to read them in America so I accept that, but there
is going to be such a backlog of X-rays going to America. I just wanted to make that point.
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CHAIR: Marie, from the evidence that we have taken your comments are not unusual. You are
reflecting quite a number of other people who have given evidence for us. Please do not feel that you
are out of order because we are getting that from a number of sources as well.
Mr McMILLAN: Madam Chair, I think I have assumed that each of the men who have given
evidence so far today are ex-employees of Anglo, but I should clarify that BHP Billiton has also given
evidence to this committee indicating that they have established a regime where any former employee
of a BHP mine will be given free-of-charge access to an occupational physician to discuss their
concerns about their respiratory health. I am seeing some nods in the gallery. Through the chair, I
might invite anybody who wants to make a comment about that to come forward. If there are any
workers here who are former employees of BHP mines, it would be of interest to me and I suspect
the committee to know whether you knew about that and whether you have faith in taking up that
offer.
Mr CRAWFORD: If you go to BHP’s submission on pages 9 and 10 under ‘Supporting our
people’, 3.1 talks about current employees and 3.2 talks about retired employees.
Mr McMILLAN: For the purposes of Hansard—and I thank Mr Crawford for drawing it to my
attention—the submission states—
BHP Billiton has established a process for its retired employees to receive free medical guidance from an Occupational and
Environmental Physician who has over 20 years’ experience in the field and is skilled in the diagnosis and management of
occupational illness and injury. An initial evaluation will be provided and ongoing support will be managed on a case by case
basis.
And that is free of charge.
Mr Hempseed: I think that would apply to Chris because of his underground mining but BHP
left Moura God knows when.
Mr Hughes: I think it was around 2000, wasn’t it?
Mr Hempseed: Yes, something like that. I think the length of time for myself would probably
be too long. I would rather be getting into Anglo’s ribs. If Anglo are so generous and are going to give
a commitment to give everybody an X-ray who applies for it, what is wrong with them contacting all
their ex-employees?
CHAIR: If they know where they are, yes.
Mr Hempseed: I will send them a little letter and tell them where I am.
Mr CRAWFORD: I think that would be a good idea.
CHAIR: You might have to, John.
Mr Whittaker: It is only employees, not contractors.
Mr Hempseed: I think it should be everybody.
Mr Whittaker: It is not.
Mr Hempseed: Jo-Ann, I think I will take advantage of that. I will do that myself. I will contact
them.
CHAIR: Can you let the committee know?
Mr Hempseed: Yes. I will ask for details of it first and then say that I want one. I am quite
happy to do that.
CHAIR: Neil, what were you going to say?
Mr Whittaker: To clarify through the chair: when you mentioned employees from BHP and
Anglo, is that employees or contractors? Is there a legal difference?
CHAIR: Yes, there is.
Mr Whittaker: So you are already stopping the contractors from making a claim because they
were not employees of the mine?
CHAIR: Yes.
Mr Whittaker: That is a big number is all I was going to mention.
CHAIR: That is something that the committee is going to have to consider in some detail. Thank
you for pointing that out. If there are no further questions, I would like to thank everybody for being
here. I know you have been very patient. I would like to thank you for going outside when we had to
take some evidence in private, but please understand that that evidence was extremely important to
the committee. Thank you very much for coming today. I now declare this hearing closed.
Committee adjourned at 5.15 pm
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