Work sites across Queensland’s extractive industries have been undertaking site safety resets in August and September to ensure safety measures are kept up to date across the state.
One week into September, 43 resets had been completed, and the Queensland Minister for Resources Scott Stewart said it was an essential practice to snap out of any bad habits.
“Industry, unions, workers, and government all play their part in making sure every worker returns home safely after every shift,” Stewart said.
“We know that complacency can lead to serious harm, and this was reflected in Dr Sean Brady’s 2019 review into accidents and fatalities in Queensland mines and quarries.
“Even when the industry thinks operations are running safely, we must constantly be on the lookout for hazards that could be going undetected, unreported and uncontrolled.”
The theme of the 2021 Safety Reset has been inspired by Brady’s review in 2019 which outlined the concept of chronic unease – a preoccupation with failure – being key to highly reliable organisations.
For this reason, the theme is Chronic unease: Improving safety culture through better hazard and incident reporting.
Stewart said the rate of incidents had been on the improve in recent years and took this as all the more reason to continue the push to zero harm.
“The most important thing to come out of any Queensland work site at the end of the day is our workers,” Stewart said.
“That’s why the Palaszczuk Government is focused on the safety of workers in the resources sector and why safety resets like this are so important.
“Even though the rates of serious incidents are going down across our industries, we can’t be complacent about safety – it’s simply not an option.”
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