Beaconsfield Coronial Inquest Walkout

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On 22 July 2008 the Tasmanian Coroner continued with his inquest into the death of Larry Knight at the Beaconsfield mine on 25 April 2006. Shortly after the start the legal team representing the mine walked out. Newspaper, radio and TV have covered this extraordinary development.

Other reports in SafetyAtWorkBlog told of the lawyers’ attempts to limit the investigative range of the inquest. Now it is difficult to not see the decision to only be present to question four witnesses – senior managers of the mine – as a fit of pique.

According to various media reports, Beaconsfield Gold chief executive Bill Colvin said, outside the court,

“We believe the evidence that would come out has already been presented and there’s nothing further we could add to that.”

The mine’s lawyer, David Neal, said that the union claim that the mine “put production ahead of safety” is a “scandalous implication.” He went on to say that the rockfall that killed Larry Knight was “unpredictable and unforeseen”.

Bill Colvin said that the “scandalous allegations” were based on flimsy and factually incorrect evidence which had already been dealt with by investigators. “We have been through an extremely exhaustive process,” Mr Colvin said. “We have bared our sole on this issue and the cupboard is essentially bare – there is no stone left to be unturned.”

A media statement by Beaconsfield Gold listed the amount of information already made available to the Coroner.

“Extremely detailed written responses from the mine in response to a series of notices issued by the Special Investigation team in June and November 2006;

Interviews with the mine’s senior managers, many of the mine’s employees, and the 7 external consultants who had provided reports to the mine;

1,131 documents in both electronic and hard copy form, totalling 53,000 pages;

More than 60,000 emails;

The Melick report itself which, with its 57 annexures runs to more than 2,500 pages and which includes the 85 page report of Mr Marisett on geotechnical issues, and the report of Professor Quinlan on occupational health and safety issues which runs to 420 pages.

The four detailed Cases for Safety which examine every aspect of the current safe operations of the mine and which total 1,800 pages”

Many of these reports have been viewed by parties involved – the family of Larry Knight and the Australian Workers Union – but the reports, particularly the OHS investigation by Professor Michael Quinlan, have not been made publicly available. The reason given has been the coronial inquest.

I am surprised that the lawyers have taken such a belligerent position as it is an axiom that for justice to be done, it needs to be seen to be done. We are not seeing it in this case. Whether that is due to the lawyers, the Coroner, the government or the established legal protocols is unclear. However, the restricted access to these findings is pushing public sympathy, already suspicious of the Beaconsfield Mine management, further in favour of Larry Knight’s family and the union.
Participation by the mine’s legal team may have been time-consuming and laborious but coronial inquests are sometimes like that and the simple presence of mine management representatives or legal representatives would have shown the public that the company will take criticism “on the chin”; it is willing to “face the music”. By refusing to be there and not listening to the other side (even if it has been heard before) suspicion is increased, sympathy or even understanding by the public has declined.

The mine’s management has said that “there is no stone left to be unturned” and this may be the case but we cannot verify this because the investigation reports have not been publicly released. There is also no guarantee that even after the inquest the reports will be released.

From the safety management perspective and for the purpose of preventing further workplace deaths, the investigation reports need to be made publicly available as early as possible.

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