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Mining industry 60% safer than in 2001: Safe Work Report

Safe Work Australia has published the 2017-18 Australian Workers’ Compensation Statistics report showing, among other things, that the number of serious incidents in the mining industry has declined by more than 60 per cent since 2000-2001.

Overall, the report shows there were 107,335 serious workers’ compensation claims in Australia in the 12 months to 30 June 2018. This is a lower number of claims, but time lost increased.

The frequency rate of serious claims fell by 28 per cent, from 7.9 per million hours worked in 2007-08 to 5.7 per million hours worked in 2016-17, while the median time lost for serious claims increased by 26 per cent, from 4.6 to 5.8 working weeks.

The total number of serious claims in Australia declined by 18 per cent, from 129,490 to 106, 510, despite the number of workers increasing by nearly 20 per cent over the same period (2007-08 to 2016-17).

The main causes of serious claims in 2017-18 were body stressing (36 per cent), followed by falls, trips and slips of a person (23 per cent) and being hit by moving objects (16 per cent).

The frequency rate of serious claims was higher in men (6.0) than women (4.8), calculated per million hours worked by gender.

The health care and social assistance industry accounted for 16 per cent of serious claims in 2017–18, followed by the Construction and Manufacturing industries which accounted for a further 13 and 12 per cent of serious claims respectively. Together, these industries accounted for 41 per cent of all serious claims, but only 29 per cent of the workforce.

The mining industry accounted for two per cent of serious claims.

The largest declines in frequency rates over the period occurred in the financial and insurance service (down 64 per cent), mining (down 59 per cent) and electricity, gas, water and waste services (down 52 per cent) industries.

Mining also fell the second most of any industry for incidence rates (down 62 per cent), behind the financial and insurance service (down 65 per cent).

Median time lost increased for all 19 industries covered in the report, with the mining industry jumping from 5.1 weeks lost in 2000-01 to 8.6 in 2016-17.

Other key findings in 2017-18 include:

  • The three occupations with the highest rate of serious claims (per million hours worked) were:
    1. Labourers
    2. Community and personal service workers
    3. Machinery operators and drivers.
  • The three industries with the highest rate of serious claims (per million hours worked) were:
    1. Agriculture, forestry and fishing
    2. Manufacturing.
    3. Transport, postal and warehousing

Read the full report here.

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