Northern Star Mining Services has been fined $750,000 over a workplace incident that caused a worker to suffer serious spinal and leg injuries.
Northern Star Mining Services has been fined $750,000 over a workplace incident that caused a worker to suffer serious spinal and leg injuries.
The company pleaded guilty to two offences for causing serious harm to a worker and exposing them to the risk of death, injury or harm to health, according to a WorkSafe statement today.
Northern Star Mining Services was fined $750,000 and ordered to pay $3,211 in costs in the Perth Magistrates Court today.
NSMS is an in-house contractor providing underground mining to its parent entity, Subiaco-based Northern Star Resources.
In its statement, WorkSafe said Northern Star Resources had contracted NSMS to work at its Carosue dam site in January 2023 when the incident occurred.
A drill operator was helping repair and service Sandvik twin boom Jumbo drill at a workshop that was part of the Carosue dam operations, WorkSafe said.
An isolation and tagging safe work procedure was in place, which stated that workers should isolate the Jumbo drill power and apply a personal danger lock and tag when testing was not required for the drill.
WorkSafe said under the procedure, supervisors should have used barricades or hazard tape to exclude workers from the energised Jumbo’s area of operation when the drill was to be tested or adjusted.
According to WorkSafe, the company did not implement control measures set out in the procedure, failing in supervision and direction.
“On the evening of the incident, when a drill operator tested the left boom, the boom rail moved uncontrollably due to an internal fault,” its statement reads.
“The boom rail then swung downwards and struck a worker, causing serious injuries.
“Following the incident, Northern Star Mining Services made improvements to the training associated with the procedure and upgraded other engineering and administrative controls.”
Northern Star Resources managing director Stuart Tonkin said the health and safety of the team were core values for the company.
“Our immediate priority following the incident in the Porphyry Surface workshop at the Carosue Dam Operations on 13 January 2023 was to support our employee and his family towards recovery,” he said in a statement.
“We continue to support our employee, who is working as a valued member of the team.
“This incident was an unacceptable breach of our safety procedures.
“We have applied learnings from this incident to improve our controls and mitigate the risk of a similar incident in the future.”
Mr Tonkin said the company pleaded guilty to the two charges under the Work Health and Safety Act as soon as possible, to take accountability of Northern Star’s failure.
"We accept the sentence handed down today. We are committed to doing everything possible to avoid similar safety breaches from happening again,” he said.
WorkSafe Commissioner Sally North said NSMS could have avoided the incident if it had followed proper processes.
“Isolation and tagging safe work procedures are in place to protect workers and must be followed to reduce risk and prevent injury,” she said.
“Management and supervisors must ensure workers handling hazardous energy and machinery are properly trained, instructed and supervised.”
