CFMEU call for clarity after mine worker tests positive

The CFMEU has demanded greater transparency from mining companies after a worker tested positive for COVID-19.

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Queensland health authorities are investigating whether a Rockhampton-based mine worker who tested positive for COVID-19 is the first example of community transmission in the state’s coalmining region.

Colleagues who may have come in contact with the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance miner, who travelled by bus to the mine site, have been isolated amid calls from the CFMEU for greater transparency from resources companies.

The positive test came after former resources minister Matt Canavan last week urged the Minerals Council of Australia and the Queensland government to impose a temporary ban on fly-in, fly-out workers to protect regional communities.

CFMEU mining and energy Queensland president Stephen Smyth said workers had received “minimal information” about the diagnosis after BMA on Friday ­announced a Blackwater mine ­operations services maintenance worker, who had not been on site since April 1, had tested positive.

“If workers are not given all the information, it’s difficult for them to have confidence that they are being kept safe,” he said. “In this case, there are multiple points of potential cross-contamination including machinery, trans­port, mess facilities and camp accommodation.

“Workers across the whole ­operation need reassurance that all of these risks have been identified, that they are being managed and that all potential exposure will be appropriately tracked. Mine workers are continuing to go to work in good faith through this pandemic to keep the industry going.”

A BMA spokesman said the employee had used the BHP COVID-19 screening tool to “self-assess their fitness to return to work”. “The individual is currently receiving appropriate healthcare and support at his home location in the Rockhampton region, and will receive a high level of support from BMA during this time,” the spokesman said.

BMA, which has implemented temperature testing at Brisbane and Moranbah airports and at site entries and exits, has contacted people who may have had contact with the worker, and those identified “have been isolated as a precaution in line with health authority guidelines”.

“All workers currently on shift were also temperature-tested by our paramedic … and no abnormal temperatures were returned.”

The Australian understands the worker had limited close contact with colleagues, with contact-tracing showing he used buses to travel between Rockhampton and the mine. There are only nine confirmed cases of coronavirus ­recorded in central Queensland.

The positive test comes as ­efforts are directed towards ensuring the critical economy, including construction, manufacturing and mining, can continue operating during the pandemic.

Mining export earnings are surging despite the pandemic having brought much of the economy to a standstill with the March forecasts in the Resources and Energy Quarterly showing Australia’s resource and energy exports are on track for a record $299bn in 2019-20.

The new forecast from the chief economist at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Russell Campbell, is $18bn higher than in December. The report said the improvement was a result of stronger iron ore prices, a virus-­induced spike in the gold price, and a further fall in the dollar.

Senator Canavan seized on the figures, saying the resources sector was “already smashing records ­before the coronavirus and now it is smashing even more in spite of the world economic fallout”.