Mine operators have a duty to establish and implement a mine safety management system for the mine.
Mine safety management system
Mine operators have a duty to establish and implement a mine safety management system (MSMS) under the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 (WHS Mines Regulations). The MSMS is a framework that brings together the mine’s policies, systems, procedures and plans to enable a mine operator to ensure the safe operation of a mine.
The MSMS covers the entire lifecycle of a mine site, including planning, design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance and closure.
The requirement to establish and implement the MSMS also applies to exploration operations.
Why is it required?
Mining is an industry with a range of hazards and associated risks due to the dynamic and varied nature of the tasks and the environment in which they are carried out. These can range from industry specific hazards, such as principal mining hazards that have the potential to result in multiple fatalities, to other hazards such as moving parts of plant or those common in many work environments, such as falls from height, lifting heavy objects and slips and trips.
The Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WHS Act) requires all persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), including the mine operator, to ensure the health and safety of workers and other persons is not put at risk from any work carried out as part of the business or undertaking. This means eliminating or minimising risks to health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable.
While most mines have health and safety related policies, plans and processes in place, the MSMS ties all these elements together into an integrated system to ensure there are no gaps in the management of all health and safety risks, and that all the elements work in a coordinated way.
Content of MSMS
The MSMS for a mine must contain a level of detail that is appropriate to the mine having regard to the nature, complexity and location of the mining operations, and the risks associated with those operations. The MSMS must be set out and expressed in a way that is readily understandable by any person who uses it. The minimum requirements are listed below, grouped into key aspects of the management system.
To learn more about the minimum requirements of an MSMS, see Content of mine safety management system: Information sheet.
Implementation of MSMS
To implement the MSMS, the mine operator needs to ensure that what is set out in the MSMS is followed in practice and adequate resources need to be provided for its implementation. Other management systems and practices should be integrated within the MSMS.
Monitoring of mining operations is necessary to ensure that what is planned in the MSMS is implemented in practice. Feedback from ongoing assessment and regular inspections should be provided to the mine operator so that steps can be taken to correct any issues that are impeding implementation.
These arrangements must be described in the MSMS and should include:
- specific and general control measures needed for the workplace such as monitoring of plant, workings and air quality
- monitoring strategies to verify the effectiveness of critical controls
- auditing and reviewing relevant activities.
Review of MSMS
Once the MSMS is in place, it must be reviewed under certain circumstances. These may include a review of the relevant parts of the management system following:
- a notifiable incident or reportable incident
- an audit of the MSMS that indicates a deficiency in a control measure
- a significant change in the mining operation.
If it is a new mine, the MSMS must be reviewed within 12 months of operations commencing. The MSMS should be fully reviewed at least once every three years and as necessary to ensure it remains effective.
Ensuring the MSMS is effective
A mine operator must have a procedure for measuring how the mine’s MSMS is performing against set performance standards, and a system for auditing to ensure the MSMS remains effective. The MSMS for a mine must include the following:
- performance standards for measuring the effectiveness of all aspects of the MSMS.
- a system for auditing the effectiveness of the MSMS against the performance standards, including the methods, frequency and results of the audit process.