State to overhaul mine safety system

Being a widow of a miner killed in WA, I have watched with increasing frustration at the lack of significant improvement in safety within the mining industry over the past two decades. 18 years ago, a study into this industry, commissioned by the then Minister for Mines highlighted some of the same issues that have been acknowledged today - particularly relating to the inspectorate and the prescriptive implementation of the Acts concerned. These same issues were again identified in subsequent reports (Kelly, Laing, Ritter and now Kenner). We have averaged 7 fatalities per year in this state for the past 2 decades - we're certainly a long way off being a candidate for 'world's best practice'! The extra resources required are extremely overdue - and money and personnel alone will not be the silver bullet.