Four miners died in an underground flood at the Gretley coal mine in the New South Wales Hunter Valley in 1996, but who exactly is to be held responsible remains unresolved. The mine company at the time, the Newcastle Walls End Coal Company, was taken over by Xstrata in 2000 and the latter is now being prosecuted for 52 safety breaches.
Recently, it emerged that the whole case may be thrown out of the State's Industrial Relations Commission on a legal technicality, namely, the wrong minister's signature on the prosecution papers.
The CFMEU had meetings with the NSW government last week following which the government agreed to strengthen procedures covering prosecutions.
CFMEU mining president Tony Maher told Dow Jones Newswires that a strike was unlikely.
"The overwhelming sentiment is one of relief that the government has stepped in and agreed to pass retrospective legislation," he said.
The situation got the attention of Australia’s national broadcaster, ABC, which recently ran a special 7.30 report interviewing some of the fathers of the dead men.
According to the report a coronial and judicial inquiry took place in 1997 following the disaster which found that maps supplied by the State Government's Department of Mines were wrong. Also that mine managers had ignored repeated warnings that water was leaking into the shaft where the men were working.
ABC reporter Mark Bannerman had this to say: “Amongst other findings, Judge James Staunton said the shortcomings in the Newcastle Walls End Coal Company were so widespread they affected every level of management.
”Armed with this kind of powerful evidence from the inquiry, it would seem a court case would happen rapidly, pointing the finger at the department involved and also the company running the mine, but that is not the way it happened.
”In fact, although Judge Staunton delivered his findings in 1998, it took the Government two years to deliver a case for prosecution, along the way it decided not to charge the Department of Mines, choosing instead to prosecute only the coal company.”
