CORONER Rod Chandler has exonerated the company and the state government of any responsibility for miner Larry Knight’s death at the Beaconsfield gold mine disaster in 2006.
Chandler says the evidence does not permit him to make a positive finding that any person, corporation or other entity, by their conduct, directly contributed to Mr Knight's death.Knight's brother claims the mine is responsible because the owners had ignored warning signs of all the falls prior to the April fall, and they should have been addressed.
Chandler has conceded that the mine owners failed to respond to a very real risk for worker safety by not adopting a systematic, comprehensive, rigorous and properly documented risk-assessment process before it permitted mining to resume.
Following the coroner's verdict, AWU federal secretary Paul Howes said despite that he cannot any single mine in Australia is 100% safe the AWU has no intention of waging a campaign to dramatically improve safety conditions in the mining industry.
Those unsatisfied with Chandler’s findings warn more deaths and accidents are bound to occur.
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