‘The most important thing to come out of the mine is the mine worker.’ It’s a great slogan at the heart of much of our union’s work around safety. With the imperative to continually increase production, workers need a strong voice for safety on our mine sites.
But our advocacy around safety doesn’t stop at the pit gate. Because the mine worker doesn’t only need to come out of the mine, he or she needs to make it home safe as well. And the dangerous state of the roads in our central Queensland mining regions can make that feel like a lottery.
Any death on a mine site is subject to extensive investigation to understand what has occurred and how it can be prevented. There’s more to do to make sure mining companies are properly held to account, but a process is undertaken.
The same rigour is not applied to fatalities on our roads, which seem to be accepted as an unfortunate inevitability. This must stop. There are clear contributing factors to the unacceptable road toll in mining regions and the Queensland Government must take action to address them.
Statistics show that road crashes in our state’s mining heartland in Central Queensland are more than twice as deadly as the average fatality rate of road crashes across the state. Central Queensland covering Rockhampton, Mackay and the Bowen Basin has a road crash fatality rate of 12.3 per 100,000 population, compared with the statewide road crash fatality rate of 5.8 per 100,000.
There are three key areas our state government can and must take action.
First, public roads are not haul roads. Several serious and fatal accidents have been caused by interactions with trucks hauling coal to washeries or loading facilities. Last year, Chris Goodwin was killed in a collision with a truck hauling coal on the Dysart-Saraji road. That was only one of three serious accidents in a short space of time in the area. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve also seen a serious accident involving a crash with a road train carrying ammonium nitrate to Saraji mine and a major chemical spill on the Bruce Highway.
Mine approvals must be dependent on the mine having sufficient transport infrastructure to keep heavy mine haulage vehicles off public roads.
Second, growth in mining activity and non-resident populations must be matched with investment in roads and other infrastructure. The latest government data shows the non-resident population in the Bowen Basin grew 8% last year, with most of that growth in the Isaac Council region, reflecting new and expanding developments around Moranbah. Government figures show there were an additional 1100 non-resident workers ‘on-shift’ in the Isaac Council in 2023 compared with 2022, but this figure doesn’t reflect the total increase in non-resident workers which could be at least up to double, to reflect alternating shifts and traffic in and out of the region.
Third, the Peak Downs Highway needs a serious upgrade to become a four-lane highway. In addition to mining industry traffic, everything our Bowen Basin towns rely on is delivered primarily by truck and much of it travels on these roads. Between accidents, police escorts and other delays; it’s a constant challenge for residents and commuting workers.
Due to the resource prices boom and revised Queensland royalties regime, the Queensland Government raked in over $15 billion in mining royalties in 2022-23. Our resources do belong to all Queenslanders; but multi-lane highways shouldn’t only be for Brisbanites driving to the Gold Coast. We sorely need a fit-for-purpose highway linking our Central Queensland coastal centres to Moranbah and other mining towns.
Our world-leading metallurgical coal industry centred in the Bowen Basin will be around for decades to come – we need urgent action now to fix our roads and stop these preventable fatalities.
Mitch Hughes
President Mining and Energy Union Queensland District
