The fall in Labor’s vote in the Upper Hunter by-election underscores the collapse of its support in key working class areas, after decades of implementing the dictates of the corporate elite.
The lessons of the 1994 Moura mine disaster in Australia
Terry Cook, a long-standing member of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) delivered this speech at the webinar “
.” The webinar was hosted by the Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand) to discuss the causes of the 2010 Pike River disaster and the efforts by successive New Zealand governments, abetted by the trade unions and the entire political establishment, to protect the corporate criminals responsible.
Dear friends and comrades.
When I first heard the news of the Pike River mine disaster, my mind raced back over the many similar deadly mining incidents in Australia that I have been assigned by the party to cover to establish the truth and alert the international working class.
Australian union petition over Grosvenor Mine disaster a cynical diversion
Over 200 miners at Anglo-American’s underground Grosvenor Mine, amounting to around 75 percent of the workforce, have signed a petition calling for the dismissal of the site’s senior leadership team. The mine, located in Central Queensland, was the site of a massive methane gas explosion on May 6 last year that left five workers with horrific injuries.
The petition, instigated by the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), declares that since the explosion, management at Grosvenor “have given us no reason to believe they have addressed the culture of poor safety or that they have put in place measures that will prevent a repeat disaster.”
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Safety regulators have approved the initial re-entry steps at Anglo American’s Grosvenor Mine almost a year after an underground explosion seriously injured five coal miners.
Resources Safety and Health Queensland began inspections at Grosvenor’s underground mine this week as Anglo started its re-entry process onsite.
Anglo American confirmed re-entry today.
It is just weeks shy of the 12-month anniversary of the May 6 explosion at the longwall panel.
RSHQ, in a statement, said the staged re-entry of the mine was scheduled to start on Thursday and followed works by Anglo to seal the longwall panel where the explosion occurred.