THE NSW government’s mining regulators are investigating a number of workplace bullying complaints at Hunter coal mines.
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In an official “incident information release” published on the Wednesday before Christmas, the Resource Regulator’s major investigation unit confirmed it was investigating complaints at various NSW coalmines.
The regulator said it was publishing the four-page notice “to draw attention to the occurrence of workplace bullying in the mining industry”. It said “bullying investigations are ongoing”.
Former Mount Arthur contract mineworker Simon Turner, who spoke out about problems at his mine in a series of Newcastle Herald articles in July, said on Thursday that he was part of a delegation that met with senior mine safety figures late last month to set out a series of problems at the mine, including bullying.
Mr Turner – who was badly injured when his truck was hit by the bucket of a coal excavator – said the government inspectors had asked for evidence to back their claims, and they had provided it in a meeting that went “for a couple of hours”.
He said he had not heard from the Department of Industry since the meeting, and while he welcomed the government highlighting bullying as a problem, he said “it has known all of this for a while, but does nothing”.
Although the December 21 bulletin does not describe individual incidents, figures released last year showed the Hunter Region dominated in coalmining bullying complaints in NSW.
Weekly government safety summaries show about 2000 “reportable incidents” a year in NSW mines, with episodes of bullying featuring among those selected for “summary” by the resource regulator.
In the December 21 document, the regulator says workplace bullying is “repeated and unreasonable behaviour” that creates a risk to health and safety.
It says management directives such as roster changes and performance management cannot be considered to be workplace bullying.
The state government restructured its mining investigation arm in July this year, creating the Resource Regulator to “undertake compliance and enforcement of a broad range of activities within the resources sector”.
As part of the overhaul, the government is advertising for a “senior intelligence analyst” to work from Maitland to “produce accurate and actionable intelligence . . . to provide a basis for targeted investigation and compliance planning”.
Mr Turner said other workers had sought him out after the Herald wrote about his situation, and he said bullying in the coal industry was a major problem that nobody seemed to want to deal with.
In one recent case before the Fair Work Commission, a Mount Arthur mineworker who was dismissed for workplace bullying won orders to be reinstated after shortcomings were found in BHP Billiton’s investigation.
