2026 Mine Safety
& Psychosocial Risk Leadership Summit Perth 

Arrival 

Welcome, opening 

Psychosocial hazards have become a major regulatory focus across the mining sector, with organisations now required to identify, assess and control psychosocial risks in the same way as physical workplace hazards. Regulators are increasingly scrutinising how mining companies manage factors such as excessive job demands, fatigue, workplace conflict, bullying, remote and isolated work, exposure to traumatic events, and organisational change.

As expectations continue to evolve, mine operators must demonstrate that psychosocial risk management is embedded within their broader safety management systems and supported by appropriate governance, monitoring and control measures.

This session examines the latest regulatory expectations, emerging compliance obligations and practical approaches to identifying and managing psychosocial hazards within complex mining environments. Attendees will gain insight into how organisations can strengthen risk management frameworks, improve workforce wellbeing and reduce exposure to regulatory enforcement.

Key Discussion Areas:
•    Psychosocial hazards as a core WHS compliance priority
•    Regulatory expectations and enforcement trends
•    Integrating psychosocial risks into safety management systems
•    Fatigue, workload and remote work considerations
•    Leadership accountability and organisational culture
•    Building proactive psychosocial risk management frameworks

Psychological injuries are attracting increasing regulatory attention, with mine operators expected to have robust systems for recognising, reporting and managing work-related psychological harm. Regulators are placing greater emphasis on notification obligations, incident response processes and the timeliness of reporting psychological injuries and incapacity events.

Failures in reporting, escalation and investigation processes can expose organisations to significant regulatory, legal and reputational consequences. At the same time, organisations are being challenged to improve early intervention and support mechanisms to reduce the long-term impacts of psychological injury on workers and operations.

This session explores the evolving regulatory landscape, recent enforcement activity and practical measures organisations can implement to strengthen compliance and improve psychological injury management outcomes.

Key Discussion Areas:

•    Psychological injury notification requirements
•    Incident reporting and escalation obligations
•    Managing psychological incapacity and return-to-work processes
•    Investigation, documentation and record-keeping requirements
•    Lessons from regulatory actions and compliance failures
•    Strengthening governance and organisational response systems

Plenary Panel, Q & A  

Morning Tea 

Mining organisations are increasingly recognising that workplace culture is not separate from safety performance -it is a critical factor influencing how risks are identified, reported and managed across operations. In 2026, regulators are placing greater emphasis on respectful workplace behaviours, psychological safety, inclusion and workforce engagement as part of broader psychosocial risk management obligations.

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As workforce demographics evolve and mining operations become more contractor-reliant and culturally diverse, organisations face growing challenges in ensuring effective communication, safe reporting pathways and consistent safety expectations across all workforce groups. Issues including bullying, harassment, discrimination, language barriers, cultural exclusion and fear of escalation are increasingly being recognised as factors that can undermine both psychological wellbeing and operational safety outcomes.

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This session examines the growing connection between workplace culture, psychosocial risk and safety performance, and explores how mining organisations can strengthen inclusion, communication and leadership practices to create safer, more resilient and higher-performing workplaces.

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Key Focus Areas; 

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• Respectful workplace culture as a safety and governance issue

• Psychological safety and speaking-up cultures

• Bullying, harassment, discrimination and harmful workplace behaviours

• Language barriers and safety-critical communication risks

• Inclusion, workforce diversity and cultural safety

• Contractor integration and workforce engagement

• Leadership accountability for workplace culture

• Regulatory expectations regarding psychosocial hazards and respectful workplaces

• Building trust, reporting confidence and workforce resilience

Boardroom accountability is no longer a theoretical governance principle—it is a legal and operational obligation with direct consequences for directors and officers. Under the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) framework and the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), officers carry a non-delegable duty of due diligence to actively identify, verify, and respond to material risks that could impact worker safety, operational integrity, and organisational performance.

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In the mining sector, where high-consequence hazards and psychosocial risks are increasingly under regulatory scrutiny, this duty extends far beyond passive oversight. Directors are expected to maintain a working understanding of site operations, ensure adequate resourcing for risk controls, and actively interrogate safety and performance data rather than relying solely on executive reporting.

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Despite this, major industry incidents continue to reveal a consistent pattern: governance failure is rarely caused by a single operational error, but by the systemic breakdown of board-level risk visibility and accountability.

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Common failure points include:

•    Information asymmetry, where boards are insulated from frontline risk realities
•    Cultural suppression of escalation, including failure to act on whistleblower concerns
•    Short-term financial prioritisation over operational risk controls
•    Weak verification of safety systems, where policies exist but are not tested or audited

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Regulators and inquiry findings increasingly show that boards are being held accountable not only for what they knew, but for what they should have known and failed to actively investigate.

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This session explores how mining boards and executive teams can strengthen due diligence practices by shifting from passive governance to active risk engagement, ensuring that psychosocial hazards, operational risks, and safety system failures are identified early and escalated effectively.

Across the mining industry, investigations into major incidents frequently reveal that warning signs existed long before the event occurred. In many cases, workers had identified concerns, observed unsafe conditions, or recognised system weaknesses but did not feel empowered, supported or safe to raise them.

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As regulatory expectations continue to evolve, psychological safety is increasingly being recognised as a critical component of effective risk management and organisational governance. A psychologically safe workplace enables workers, contractors and leaders at all levels to report hazards, challenge unsafe decisions, raise concerns and participate in safety discussions without fear of blame, retaliation or negative consequences.

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For mining organisations operating in complex, contractor-heavy and geographically dispersed environments, a strong speak-up culture is essential for identifying emerging risks before they escalate into serious incidents, injuries or operational failures.

This session explores the relationship between psychological safety, workforce engagement and operational risk management, examining how organisations can strengthen reporting cultures, improve risk visibility and create environments where critical safety concerns are surfaced, escalated and acted upon effectively.

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Key Focus Areas; 

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• Psychological safety as a leading indicator of safety performance

• Building effective speak-up and reporting cultures

• Removing barriers to hazard and incident reporting

• Encouraging challenge, feedback and frontline participation

• Leadership behaviours that influence workforce trust

• Contractor and workforce engagement in safety conversations

• Early identification and escalation of operational risks

• Lessons from major incidents where warning signs were missed

• Strengthening governance through workforce risk visibility

FIFO and remote mining operations continue to face significant workforce challenges driven by labour shortages, roster pressures, production demands and changing workforce expectations.

These factors can contribute to fatigue, psychological stress, burnout, disengagement and increased safety risk across both operational and support functions.

As workforce wellbeing becomes increasingly linked to safety performance, organisations are seeking practical strategies to support resilience, improve retention and create healthier work environments without compromising operational productivity.

This session examines the unique mental health and wellbeing challenges facing FIFO workforces and explores leading approaches to managing fatigue, reducing psychosocial risk and fostering a culture that supports both worker wellbeing and operational excellence.

Key Discussion Areas:

•    Emerging workforce wellbeing trends in mining
•    Fatigue management and roster design considerations
•    Mental health challenges in FIFO environments
•    Remote and isolated work risk factors
•    Workforce retention, engagement and resilience
•    Building psychologically healthy workplaces

Panel Session, Audience Engagement 

Lunch and networking 

Critical Control Management (CCM) has become a central pillar of modern mining safety strategy, particularly in the prevention of Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs). As mining operations become more complex and contractor-reliant, regulators and industry leaders are increasingly focused on whether safety systems are not only documented, but actively implemented, verified, and proven effective in real operational conditions.

This session examines how organisations can move beyond procedural compliance and strengthen assurance over the critical controls that prevent catastrophic events. It focuses on the practical verification of high-risk controls across key mining hazard domains, ensuring that safeguards are functioning as intended at the point of risk exposure -not just at the system level.
 

The discussion explores how failures in critical controls, rather than the absence of procedures, continue to underpin serious incidents across the industry. It reinforces the need for continuous monitoring, field verification, and accountability mechanisms that ensure controls remain effective under operational pressure.

Mining operations rely heavily on contractors to deliver high-risk activities such as blasting, rope access, shutdown maintenance, and specialist engineering works.

While this model supports operational efficiency, it also introduces significant challenges in maintaining consistent supervision, competency assurance, and control of safety-critical systems.

Incident investigations continue to show that serious failures in mining operations often occur at the interface between mine operators and contractors, where communication breakdowns, inadequate supervision, and weak verification of critical controls can lead to system failure.

This session examines how liability is determined in contractor-led incidents and where control failures typically occur in practice. It focuses on real-world breakdowns in contractor management systems and the practical steps required to maintain effective oversight and reduce exposure to high-consequence events.

Key Focus Areas

•    Contractor-led execution of high-risk mining activities 
•    Where liability sits in contractor-related incidents 
•    Common system failures in contractor oversight 
•    Breakdown of supervision and communication controls 
•    Competency verification versus operational reality 
•    Critical control failures at contractor interfaces 
•    Strengthening practical oversight and due diligence systems

Rope access is widely used across mining operations for inspection, maintenance, remediation, and structural work in areas that cannot be safely accessed by conventional means. While it is an efficient and highly specialised method of working at height, it remains a high-consequence activity requiring strict control of competency, supervision, and critical safety systems.

In mining environments, rope access work is predominantly delivered through specialist contractors and subcontracted service providers. As a result, mine operators must ensure that effective systems are in place to manage contractor competency assurance, supervision arrangements, and verification of safety-critical controls, particularly where work is performed in elevated, confined, or technically complex environments.

Regulators continue to emphasise that working at heights risks must be actively controlled through robust systems that go beyond certification alone. The focus is increasingly on whether organisations can demonstrate that personnel are not only qualified, but also capable of applying safe systems of work under site-specific conditions, including emergency response and rescue readiness.

This session examines how mining organisations can strengthen governance over rope access activities by improving contractor oversight, competency verification, supervision models, and working-at-heights risk controls.

Key Focus Areas:

•    Rope access as a high-consequence working at heights system
•    Contractor-led delivery models and shared safety accountability
•    Competency assurance beyond certification (site-based verification)
•    Supervision, rescue readiness, and emergency response requirements
•    Managing communication and procedural clarity in high-risk tasks
•    Interface risks between mine operators and specialist contractors
•    Working-at-heights critical control verification and assurance
•    Regulatory expectations for high-risk maintenance activities in mining sectors 

Audience engagement 

Afternoon tea 

Explosives management remains one of the highest-consequence activities within mining operations, requiring rigorous planning, specialist competency and continuous oversight to prevent catastrophic outcomes.

While blasting technologies and safety systems continue to evolve, recent incidents across the global mining industry demonstrate that serious events are more commonly linked to failures in governance, supervision, contractor management and critical control verification than technical deficiencies alone.

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Recent industry events have reinforced the importance of maintaining robust oversight of contractor-led blasting activities, ensuring exclusion zones remain effective, and verifying that critical controls are functioning as intended under operational conditions. Regulators are increasingly focused on how mine operators manage blasting risks, particularly where multiple contractors, complex work fronts and high-production environments create additional layers of risk exposure.

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In Western Australia, mine operators retain ultimate accountability for explosives-related activities regardless of contractor involvement. This includes demonstrating that blasting controls, exclusion zones, communication systems, competency requirements and verification processes are actively monitored and enforced.

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This session explores leading approaches to explosives risk management, contractor governance and blast safety assurance, drawing on lessons from recent industry incidents and evolving regulatory expectations.

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Key Focus Areas;

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• Explosives and blasting as critical high-consequence mining hazards

• Contractor-led blasting operations and shared duty responsibilities

• Flyrock prevention and exclusion zone integrity

• Misfire management and blast safety assurance

• Critical control verification and operational oversight

• Lessons from recent national and international incidents

• Competency, supervision and contractor accountability

• Regulatory expectations and enforcement priorities in WA

• Strengthening governance over high-risk operational activities

Underground mining represents the highest consequence operating environment in the sector, where small deviations in control can escalate rapidly into catastrophic events.

 In 2026, regulators are increasingly focused on how operators manage the compounding nature of underground risk, particularly in relation to confined space operations, geotechnical instability, ventilation systems, and emergency response capability.

This session examines modern underground mining risk profiles, including the introduction of autonomous and semi-autonomous equipment, increased reliance on digital monitoring systems, and the operational challenges of maintaining situational awareness in GPS-denied environments.

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Attendees will gain insight into current regulatory expectations and leading practices for ensuring that underground mining systems are resilient, continuously monitored, and capable of supporting rapid emergency response under constrained conditions.

Emergency preparedness in mining is shifting from procedural compliance to real-world capability testing. Regulators are increasingly assessing whether emergency response systems function effectively under operational pressure, particularly in underground and remote mining environments.

This session explores how organisations can strengthen escalation pathways, improve communication reliability, and ensure emergency response systems are tested under realistic operational scenarios rather than theoretical exercises.

Mine shafts and winding systems remain among the most critical infrastructure risks in underground mining operations.

These systems present significant hazards including mechanical failure, structural instability, and potential entrapment scenarios.

This session examines regulatory requirements for shaft management, including principal mining hazard management plans, system integrity verification, and control measures designed to prevent catastrophic conveyance failure.

It also explores how operators can strengthen inspection regimes and maintenance assurance systems to reduce high-consequence risk exposure.

Mining operations are increasingly integrating autonomous systems, AI-driven monitoring, and digital safety platforms to enhance operational efficiency and risk detection.

However, these technologies introduce new categories of risk, including system dependency, sensor failure, data integrity issues, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

This session explores how emerging digital systems are reshaping safety management frameworks and what organisations must do to ensure technology enhances, rather than undermines, operational safety.

Audience, Q & A and Panel wrap up 

Sundowner and depart