Overview
The Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Amendment Regulation 2018 (the Amendment Regulation) is made under the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Act 2013 (the Act) which regulates work health and safety at mines and petroleum sites in New South Wales.
The Amendment Regulation will amend the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2014 to address recent work health and safety issues, to ensure the policy intent of the legislation is achieved and to remove regulatory burden.
Key issues addressed by the Amendment Regulation include the following:
- To require an opal mine operator to complete a course of training relating to health and safety at opal mines every five years. Current operators of an opal mine have until 13 April 2023 to undertake the refresher.
- Require the operator of a mine or petroleum site to notify the regulator of any change to the operator’s contact details within 28 days of the change.
- To update the requirements for the use of explosion-protected electrical plant in a hazardous zone in an underground coal mine.
- To remove provisions relating to a mine operator’s obligations to monitor the health of mine workers and instead enable the regulator to direct persons conducting a business or undertaking at a mine or petroleum site to provide health monitoring to workers. (Note: the health monitoring obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 continue to apply).
- To require the operator of a petroleum site to consult with workers at the site in relation to health and safety risks and management (as mine operators are currently required to do).
- To include various events that occur at mines as high-potential incidents or notifiable incidents, which are required to be notified to the regulator by the mine operator.
- To make it an offence for a person conducting a business or undertaking at an underground coal mine to use certain kinds of plant in the mine unless the person has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the plant had been repaired under a licence.
- To update the qualifications required by persons exercising statutory engineering functions at mines.
- To prescribe certain offences against the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Act 2013 and the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2014 as offences for which a penalty notice may be issued and to prescribe the amounts of the penalties payable.
When do the amendments take effect?
The amendments to the regulation will take effect on 13 April 2018.
Further information
A fact sheet on the Amendment Regulation has been developed and is available for download here.
Phone: 1300 814 609
Email: mine.safety@planning.nsw.gov.au
Legislation
Download a copy of the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Amendment Regulation 2018 [PDF, 245kb] from the NSW Legislation web site.
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