This guide explains the health and safety obligations for mine operators and contractors at mines under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (the WHS Act) and the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 (WHS Mines Regulations), and how to fulfil these
obligations.
The participation of contractors at a mine creates mutual obligations and mutual arrangements among the various duty holders for maintaining a safe workplace. Members of the mining company and the contractors share the workplace and therefore share the
responsibility for the health and safety of everyone at the site.
This requires information, consultation, cooperation and coordination between duty holders. At the same time, duty holders cannot 'contract out' of health and safety responsibilities, no matter how long the chain of contracting and subcontracting is at a site.
This guide is intended to assist duty holders to understand these obligations and arrangements, and the actions they need to take to achieve compliance with legal requirements.
The term contractor is used throughout this guide in reference to a person conducting a business or undertaking that provides contracted services rather than to individual workers employed as contractors.
The scope of this guide excludes contractors carrying out construction work as defined in Chapter 6 of the WHS Mines Regulations.