Threat of black lung ‘can never be eliminated’: senate inquiry

The threat of ‘black lung’ to coalminers can “never be eliminated” according to a submission to a senate inquiry.

The threat of ‘black lung’ to coalminers can “never be eliminated” according to a submission to a senate inquiry, which blames a failure of regulation in Queensland for the recent re-emergence of the deadly disease in Australia.

The mining union warned of a lack of “skills for proper diagnosis” and claimed dust sampling technology used in Queensland mines was no longer “best practice”, in its submission to the Senate Select Committee on Health, obtained by The Australian.

The submission also criticised health monitoring for coalminers but stressed it was not a national problem — “the problems are not replicated in the NSW industry, with its dust monitoring and worker health monitoring overseas by the joint industry body Coal Services Pty Ltd.”

“We are seeing multiple systemic failures borne of complacency — as if coal workers’ pneumoconiosis once eliminated would never return, rather than requiring constant vigilance,” the submission said.

“Industry and government vigilance in Queensland has been so lacking it is arguable that we do not now possess the tools to address the multiple problems.”

The Committee announced it was examining the re emergence of Black Lung disease in Queensland with the first hearings in Brisbane and Mackay next week.

“The recurrence of the disease has exposed a litany of failings in mine site management practices, in regulatory compliance systems and in the health monitoring system in Queensland”, the union’s submission said.

Furthermore, Queensland’s mine safety regulator “is unwilling and probably unable to engage in enforcement of compliance regarding dust levels” and there is a “potential conflict of interest inherent in the mine operator being the sampler”.

While the disease was first thought to have been eradicated in Australia the 1970s, 75 cases emerged in Queensland in 1984.

The industry was then presumed to be disease-free until the Queensland government revealed five confirmed cases in recent months.

The submission calls for mines to implement a system for following up coal workers after they leave the industry.

The NSW Coal Services body, jointly owned by coal companies and the mining union, is part of a more “comprehensive” system of regulation, the union states.

Three primary types of lung disease are classified as pneumoconiosis — asbestosis, silicosis and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis.