The IRC handed down the penalties Friday to companies Newcastle Wallsend Coal and Oakbridge, and managers Richard Porteous, Jon Romcke and Mark Robinson. IRC Justice Patricia Staunton found the companies and three employees guilty of breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (1983) in August 2004.
Gretley mine-workers Edward Batterham, John Hunter, Mark Kaiser, and Damon Murray, drowned when their continuous miner broke into the flooded workings of the abandoned Young Wallsend colliery (YWC).
Justice Staunton fined the mine owners $400,000 each for planning, research and assessment offences, representing the greatest culpability on the defendants' part, she said.
"That is because, encapsulating as it does the primary failure to properly research the location and extent of the YWC, it was that failure that was the genesis of the deaths of the four miners and the other injuries that flowed."
Staunton also fined the companies $500,000 for failing to inform mine workers that the old mine was full of water and under pressure, as well as $160,000 for safety breaches that occurred immediately before and during the mine disaster.
Porteous was fined $42,000 for offences over the planning, research and assessment charge, but charges for system of work and night shift offences were officially dismissed. Romcke and Robinson were fined $30,000 each for planning, research and assessment charges.
Charges against Michael Coffey, Phillip Pritchard, Michael Alston, Christopher Nicholls and Terence Shacklady were dismissed.
Xstrata Coal took over Gretley when it bought parent company Oakbridge more than three years after the fatality. Today the companies and individuals are back in court to seek a review of the IRC’s original findings.
“The papers filed in the Court of Appeal detail the extensive list of concerns with the Gretley decision, underpinned by the belief that the individuals and corporations charged with such serious offences should be entitled to avail themselves of the legal system and process,” said Peter Coates, chief executive officer Xstrata Coal.
The appeals are aimed at overturning criminal liability for workplace death and injury. Currently defendants face criminal liability for workplace death and injury but the companies are arguing if an offence carries criminal liability then the defendant should be entitled to the same rights that would apply in a criminal case.
Centennial Coal has been affected by the issue, too; earlier this month it was fined $200,000 over the death of mine worker Barry Edwards in July 1998. Centennial acquired Awaba when it bought the Powercoal group in 2002.
Meanwhile, mine-workers from the Hunter Valley were planning to demonstrate against the appeal outside the Court of Appeal in Sydney today. The union is arguing the changes sought by Xstrata and Centennial would weaken the ability to prosecute safety breaches.
The New South Wales Government has draft legislation on the table to introduce jail terms for people who are responsible for workplace deaths. The union wants "industrial manslaughter" to be introduced.
