Fatigue Management in the Queensland Mining Industry and its relationship with Mental Health

This project focused on fatigue, and fatigue management, in Queensland mining. It also examined the relationships between fatigue, safety, and mental health in mining.

A fatigue management baseline was established, this included: (a) a targeted review of current information about fatigue management from regulatory, industry, and academic sources (b) analysis of incident data to better understand fatigue as a hazard in Australian mining * (c) a gap analysis to assess the likely effectiveness of existing fatigue management processes at a selection of mine sites. Additional literature reviews in mining then explored the relationships between fatigue, health and safety, and mental health.

The work closed by examining the gaps in current Queensland fatigue risk management guidance relative to leading practice. A comparison of the controls from QGN16 and those in more recent guidance documents was presented in bow-tie format. Overall, the changes in the bow-ties across time show a general maturing in the mining industry’s understanding and management of risks associated with fatigue. While it is recognised that the industry has made considerable progress in the area of fatigue management, additional controls based on leading practice elsewhere are possible. These additional controls, which could potentially be incorporated into future versions of a Queensland fatigue risk management guidance note, include a better consideration of mental health outcomes, a greater use of fatigue detection technologies, and addressing the challenges sometimes faced when Queensland workplaces wish to implement fatigue management controls but are complicated by mandated thresholds for agreement in consultation processes.