Bowen Basin Company set to pay mitigated fines after the death of one miner, injury of another

A Queensland mining company has learned its fate after one of its workers was crushed to death just months after another worker suffered a serious injury.

Brad Duxbury was killed at Carborough Downs mine site on November 25, 2019.

A Bowen Basin Mining company has been fined $720,000 over the horror death of Ipswich father Brad Duxbury, who was killed when almost two tonnes of coal fell crushing him.

The fine also covers harm to another worker Cameron Best, who was seriously injured by a falling roof linked to a geological fault just months earlier.

In April 2024 Carborough Downs Mine Management pleaded guilty in Mackay Industrial Magistrates Court to failing to discharge health and safety obligations causing death and grievous bodily harm.

The court heard the penalty can result in fines of more than $2m.

Carborough Downs Mine near Moranbah was the site of two workplace safety catastrophes in 2019.

Mr Best, a bord and pillar operator, was injured on September 17, 2019 when a 25kg slab of strata struck his back lacerating his liver, spleen, fracturing his ribs, two vertebrae and collapsing a lung.
Mr Duxbury died just two months later when two tonnes of coal fell on him after countermeasures failed to mitigate danger from a cracking coalface.

Acting Magistrate Athol Kennedy said the mine operator’s “conduct exposed workers to unacceptable risk of injury and death”.

Mr Kennedy initially set the fines at $400,000 for the grievous bodily harm of Mr Best and $800,000 for the death of Mr Duxbury before reducing each for “mitigating factors” including an early guilty plea, co-operation with investigation, lack of previous convictions and evidence of systemic changes across the company following the incidents.

This brought the individual fines to $240,000 in the case of Mr Best and $480,000 for the death of Mr Duxbury.

The Work Health and Safety Prosecutor’s office had been pushing for a fine between $800,000 and $1 million and that convictions be recorded.

A conviction was not recorded and Carborough Downs Mine Management will have eight months to pay the fine in full.

Originally published as Bowen Basin Company set to pay mitigated fines after the death of one miner, injury of another