On 13 May 2026 the Industrial Court of NSW entered a conviction against Newcrest Mining Ltd, the previous operator of the Cadia East Underground Mine near Orange, in relation to a workplace incident. A worker suffered an amputation of his left arm below the elbow when it became entangled in the rotating drill steel of a jumbo drill rig at the mine on 19 June 2023.
Newcrest Mining Ltd pleaded guilty to contravening section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 by failing to ensure so far as reasonably practicable the health and safety of workers engaged by it pursuant to 19 of the WHS Act.
The Court imposed a fine of $1M (reduced by $250,000 for the offender’s guilty plea).
The key facts surrounding the incident are set out from paragraph 15 of the full judgment.
Judge Paingakulam convicted the offender of failing to:
- Install a presence sensing safeguarding or automatic boom isolation system on Jumbos;
- Implement and enforce a safe system of work, including a documented safe work procedure, that addressed tasks requiring workers to access areas forward of the Jacks of Jumbos;
- Provide adequate information, instruction, training and competency assessment of workers performing the role of Nipper Offsiders;
- Install an electronic data logging system or similar system to monitor and track usage by workers of the Boom Immobiliser System on Jumbos;
- Develop, implement and enforce a requirement for periodic auditing of dash camera footage on Jumbos to monitor compliance by workers with the safe system of work; and
In finding that the objective seriousness of the offence fell within the high range, Judge Paingakulam observed (inter alia):
“As accepted by Newcrest, working forward of the jacks with the system engaged, far from being a “one off” aberration, was a well-established practice”.
“The risk and the controls required to manage such a risk were well known to Newcrest. The possible consequences of a breach of duty by Newcrest plainly included fatal injury. Further, Newcrest was aware that the likelihood of the risk materialising was high. It was an agreed fact that workers were required to access the area in front of the jacks up to 200 times per day. The MGS Procedure identified there being a “high risk of entanglement” if persons travelled beyond the jacks without activating the boom immobilisation switches. Yet it was an agreed fact that this was “common practice”. The serious injuries suffered by Mr Manns were a manifestation of the risk”.
“There can be little benefit to Newcrest in having safety systems and procedures in place when they were able to be and in fact were routinely ignored by workers… Newcrest implemented a system which was entirely dependent on worker compliance with no effective verification control measures in place, despite the assessed high likelihood of an incident associated with non-compliance and the serious consequences for worker safety in the event of an incident.
In delivering her sentence on 13 May 2025, Judge Paingakulam ordered that Newcrest Mining Limited:
- Be convicted and fined $1,000,000- (reduced by 25% for the offender’s guilty plea)
- Pay a 50% moiety of the fine to the prosecutor
- Pay the prosecutor’s costs as agreed or assessed.
At the time of the offence, the maximum penalty for a corporation in the case of a corporation was $1,860,843.05.
The operator of the jumbo drill rig, Timothy Jones, has also pleaded guilty to breaching section 32 (Category 2) by failing to take reasonable care not to adversely affect the health and safety of a coworker pursuant to section 28(b) of the Act. Judgment in that matter has been reserved.
