OPINION: RECOGNISING QUEENSLAND MINING’S BEST WORK, WHEN IT COUNTS MOST

There is a particular energy to QME in Mackay. The exhibition halls fill, the conversations run long, and for a few days the whole Queensland mining supply chain gathers in one place at one time. It is also the week we present the Queensland Mining Awards, now in their 12th year, and for me that timing is no accident. When the industry is gathered together, it is the right moment to stop and recognise the work that often goes unseen the rest of the year.

I won’t pretend the past two years have been easy ones for our sector. Costs have climbed and scrutiny has sharpened. Every operation has been asked to do more with less, and those pressures are felt most keenly by the teams on site, who do a brilliant job to keep producing safely while the conditions shift around them.

That is exactly why I think an awards program like the Queensland Mining Awards matters more now than it did in steadier times.

Innovation in mining rarely arrives as a grand announcement. It shows up as an idea; a safer way to do a dangerous job, or a process that shaves hours off a shutdown without anyone outside the gate ever hearing about it. The Awards exist to find those stories and put them in front of the people best placed to appreciate them. This year’s finalists are a good illustration of the range.

Take Anglo American’s Armadillo, which removes people from high-risk excavation work over live conveyors, or Mammoet Australia’s relocation of the Peak Downs dragline, a feat of planning and execution at a scale few industries attempt.

At the other end of the field you have the Bargala Nanhi Seed Project, a partnership between BMA, Barada Barna and Greening Australia that ties land rehabilitation to Traditional Owner knowledge, alongside Peabody’s gas-to-power station at Centurion, which turns a traditional risk into electricity to power the site.

The breadth of innovation is the point. This year’s 28 finalists run from multinational producers to Mackay-based small businesses, and there is a category for almost every part of the supply chain.

What gives the Awards their weight is the judging. Every entry is read by an independent panel of senior industry figures, people who have run procurement and operations across the state’s biggest names.

They assess against a peer-reviewed matrix, and every finalist receives direct feedback on their submission. There is no easy way through. With some categories as competitive as we have seen them, simply making the finalist list is a genuine mark of quality.

Recognition of this kind does real work. It tells a young engineer that the problem they solved was worth solving, and it hands a small supplier a credential they can take to their next client. It also lifts the standard across the board, because once one team has shown that something can be done, others start asking why it cannot be done on their site too. That is how an industry improves, one proven idea at a time.

The winners of all eight categories, along with the Queensland Mining Contractor of the Year, will be announced at our Gala Presentation Dinner on Wednesday 22 July at the Mackay Entertainment and Convention Centre, sponsored by MyPass. It is the night the industry swaps boots for black tie, and it remains one of my favourite evenings of the year.

If you are at QME, come and find us. The Bowen Basin Mining Club team will be on stand B118 across the week, and we would like to hear what your business is working on.

The next great mining idea is almost certainly already underway on a site somewhere in Queensland. Our job is to make sure it does not go unnoticed.

Jodie Currie

Director, Bowen Basin Mining Club