Company in court fight over report into mine deaths

MORE than five years after the deaths of three Queenstown mine workers, a coronial inquest is on indefinite hold while the mining company attempts to stop a report being given to the coroner.

The inquest is examining the December 2013 deaths of Alistair Lucas, 25, and Craig Gleeson, 45, who died after a platform they were working on in the Mt Lyell mine collapsed.

It also includes the death of mine machinery operator Michael Welsh, 53, who died six weeks later in a mudrush at the Queenstown mine on January 17, 2014.

Mr Welsh was killed while working in an area of the mine that had its safety rating increased to medium — the second highest rating in the fourlevel safety system — earlier that morning.

Copper Mines of Tasmania was convicted in the Burnie Magistrates Court in 2016 and fined $225,000 for failing to provide a safe workplace over the deaths of Mr Lucas and Mr Gleeson.

The company pleaded not guilty to the same charge in relation to Mr Welsh’s death and the case was dropped after evidence from a Workplace Standards investigator and mining consultant John Webber was disallowed.

Mr Webber put together a report containing information including safety at the mine, the nature of the terrain, geological factors, staffing movements and safety protocols.

In a written ruling on February 1, 2018, Coroner Simon Cooper said Mr Webber would be called to give evidence during the inquest.

CMT took the coroner to the Supreme Court and on May 25, 2018, Justice Stephen Estcourt ruled in favour of the mining company, prohibiting the inclusion of Mr Webber’s evidence in the inquest.

At an appeal in the Full Court yesterday Solicitor-General Michael O’Farrell said: “The coroner hasn’t admitted anything into evidence yet and that’s what they [CMT] want to stop.”

CMT’s lawyer Chris Gunson said: “The report of Mr Webber is so woeful and deficient, it’s virtually impossible to understand his reasoning and to effectively cross examine him and that constitutes procedural unfairness.”

The Full Court reserved its decision.