Education, education and education. Recognise that mantra? No? OK, we’ll play ‘guess the famous political speech’ another time.

Those fellows at Rio Tinto may have indulged in a little political research when they sat down to create the health and safety development program for the Yandicoogina mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

The focus of the program is clear and simple – educate the workforce.

Safety across Australia’s minesites has rarely been scrutinised as much as it has in recent months, following a series of fatalities.

The simple question asked after every tragedy is: why?

Investigations are ongoing into the cause of each fatality and whether lessons can be learned. And it’s this philosophy of education that Rio is trying to instil among miners at Yandicoogina.

It’s easy to stick a list of rules and regulations on a noticeboard and pay lip service to what a workforce should and shouldn’t be doing. Then, if something goes wrong, mining companies have the get out of jail card of claiming they’re operating a high-profile health and safety policy.

Rio is trying to enforce an experienced-based approach by educating its workforce and making them think about their actions and the potential consequences. Workers will study safety material, then see it in action.

It’s more of a classroom approach, as opposed to the standard bulletin board method of covering your backside, should anything go wrong.

Western Australia’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) liked Rio’s approach so much that it handed Rio a safety award for its efforts.

The team at Yandicoogina came out on top in the People Category in the 2014 CME Safety and Health Innovation Awards.

CME described Rio Tinto’s approach to safety as “a cutting-edge development program targeting safety and health representatives at Rio Tinto’s Yandicoogina mines site.

“Key elements of this staged and multi-faceted development program include application of adult learning principles, up-skilling of individual representatives, increased exposure to site management, increased exposure to high level safety and health processes on site and social events.

“The overall goal of this program is to develop a cohesive and industry best standard team of safety and health representatives who can address team and site issues on the shop floor confidently and professionally.”

Leighton Contractors took the top award in the Engineering Category and Industry Choice for the development of a safety pressure locking advice.

CME explained: “The hazard posed by the unplanned release of stored pressure from pressure vessels on dump trucks was the trigger for development of this safety innovation.

“Previous approaches relied on trades-people checking that all pressure had been vented before the pressure manifold was removed.

“The addition of a pressure sensitive locking pin that locks a fitted guard in place if there is any pressure in the cylinder ensures the manifold can only be removed when the pressure has been released, only then will the locking pin disengage the guard.”

CME Chief Executive Reg Howard-Smith congratulated all finalists. He said: “The innovations being developed by individual companies highlight the entire industry’s commitment to continue to improve safety performance.

“Whether it’s by engineering new solutions to minimise risk or promoting a site culture of safety first, these achievements promote the health and wellbeing of workers.

“The aim of the awards is to promote the application of innovation across the WA resources industry, as this is essential to ensure continuous improvement in safety and health performance.

“It is exciting to be able to celebrate achievement and success within our industry.”

That’s quite a testimonial for Rio, Leighton and the other finalists and winners.

The awards were handed out at a ceremony in Perth earlier this month.

So where does this leave safety?

The awards handed to Rio and Leighton demonstrate a hands-on approach at lifting safety standards across the Australian mining industry.

Both companies have analysed the issue and developed methods of improving standards for their workforce. In Leighton’s case, they’ve applied an engineering fix to a potentially lethal occupational hazard.

Mining isn’t Australia’s most dangerous industry. But as we’ve seen in recent months, fatalities occur. Therefore safety, quite rightly, will remain at the top of the agenda.

Congratulations to Rio, Leighton and all the other finalists and award winners.