A model for best practice safety regulation in the mining industry

Abstract

The authors were engaged by the West Australian government in early 2005 to provide advice on best practice safety regulation for the mining industry in that state. The advice was provided in the first place to a Mine Safety Improvement Group and formed the basis of its report to government, delivered in April 2005. The full report is available at http://www.ministers.wa.gov.au/carpenter/docs/features/interim%20report%20stage%201%20w%20text.pdf The present paper aims to extricate the advice outlined in that report from the particular Western Australian context and present it in a way that is of potential relevance to other Australian jurisdictions. The aim, then, is to present a model for best practice safety regulation in the mining industry generally. Many discussions of regulatory models focus on the kinds of regulatory requirements that are to be imposed on the regulated industry. The discussion here goes beyond that to consider the regulator itself and how it might best be organized. In short, the paper deals both with the regulatory requirements and with the structure of the regulator. The latter is a pressing practical issue for any government seeking to set up a best practice regulatory regime and for this reason we devote considerable attention to it. In addition we discuss strategies for establishing such a regulator. The principles outlined are based on research carried out by the first named author (Hopkins), and on many years of practical experience as a regulator in the UK and in Australia by the second named author (Wilkinson). Wilkinson was head of the team which established the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority.