$750K Fine for Northern Star: When Ignoring Isolation Turns Workers into Human Crash Test Dummies
- SJ
- Aug 4
- 2 min read
What Actually Happened (Because Someone Needs to Stop Pretending This Is Unavoidable)
Northern Star Mining Services Pty Ltd, part of the corporate behemoth Northern Star Resources, was slapped with a $750,000 fine plus $3,211 in court costs under the Western Australian Work Health and Safety Act 2020. That’s the full corporate hammer—Category 2 level failure—because a worker ended up with serious spinal and leg injuries.
ABC clarified the details: on 13 January 2023, a worker was servicing a Sandvik twin‑boom jumbo drill rig in a surface workshop at the Porphyry mine. The boom rail, likely still powered, swung down unexpectedly and struck him. That’s when negligence became catastrophic.
Investigators determined the company ignored its own lock-out/tag-out procedures. The rig should’ve been completely isolated—power cut, a personal danger lock and tag applied, and exclusion zones enforced by barricades or tape. None of that happened. It's textbook failure.
How This Falls Apart (Spoiler: It’s Human Error, or Worse)
Existing procedures? In place but ignored.
Isolation failures? Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.
Supervision? Lacking. Direction? Nonexistent.
Consequence? A human being suffers severe injuries because common sense wasn’t common enough.
WorkSafe Commissioner Sally North didn’t mince words: isolation and tagging rules exist to prevent disaster—and management failed at the only instance that actually mattered.
Northern Star’s MD, Stuart Tonkin, called it an “unacceptable breach”, adding that they've now improved training and controls.
Too little, too late.
Lessons That Should’ve Been Learned Yesterday
Isolation Is Non-Negotiable If energy isn't isolated, don't get close. You don’t need annual audits to grasp that.
Procedures Exist for a Reason A procedure ignored is a worker endangered. That’s not an opinion—that’s maths.
Supervision Isn’t Optional Workers follow procedures they believe are backed by oversight. If leadership doesn’t enforce, everyone skips.
Hierarchy of Control Isn’t Decoration Lock‑out/tag‑out, barricades, exclusion zones—that’s your frontline. Ignore them, and reality bites back.
Fines Are Symptoms, Not Solutions Sure, $750k hurts corporate wallets—but it doesn’t heal the worker. It only shoves us this incident into the “lesson learned” pile.
Culpability Scales FastThis wasn’t industrial manslaughter, but a clear Category 2 breach. Courts won’t be gentle when systems are in place but not used
Conclusion (Because Yes, I’m That Done with This)
We've seen this before—machines with energy, people within their danger zones, procedures ignored. The cycle repeats until someone gets hurt. Northern Star’s fine doesn’t rewrite the script; it just reinforces that complacency kills.
Comments