The principal aims of the harmonised work health and safety (WHS) legislation were to reduce the regulatory burden for businesses and undertakings operating in more than one jurisdiction and to achieve significant and continual reductions in work-related deaths, injuries and disease. Through...

This article draws on the findings of the Pike River Royal Commission and other investigations, on the wider international literature on Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulation and on the writer's own interviews with mining industry stakeholders, to develop a composite picture of what went wrong...