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Thursday, 04 December 2008

Beaconsfield miners to take the stand

21/07/2008 12:31:00 PM.  | 
Beaconsfield miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb will give evidence at an inquest starting tomorrow into the death of fellow miner Larry Knight.

Mr Russell and Mr Webb survived 14 days trapped underground in northern Tasmania's Beaconsfield gold mine after a rock fall which killed Mr Knight on April 25, 2006.

Coroner Rod Chandler said at a preliminary hearing that the pair, whose protracted rescue made world headlines, would be among the 30 or so witnesses to be called to the marathon inquest expected to last two months.

Production decisions at the mine will also be probed for links to the death at the hearing being held inside a specially modified Launceston Magistrates Court.

At the time of the rock-fall, the mine was co-owned and managed by Allstate Explorations, which was run by the Perth-based administrator Michael Ryan.

Allstate was operated largely for the benefit of Macquarie Bank, which had a stranglehold on profits following a contentious 2002 deal in which it bought $77 million in intercompany debt for only $300,000.

In May last year, Mr Webb told The Australian: "We were always threatened with, 'Macquarie Bank will close us up - one more month of us making no money and Macquarie Bank closes us up'.

The inquest will also cover geotechnical issues, risk management, and the role of Workplace Safety Tasmania.
Extra seating and new computer equipment have been installed in the court for this hearing.

The Tasmanian government's special investigator Greg Melick, SC, handed his report on the collapse to Mr Chandler on September 5 last year.

It said better underground support may have reduced the chances of the fatal rock fall.

But Mr Melick said in the report that he considered it unlikely that a fall could have been completely prevented after the seismic event which struck the gold mine.

He said the fall was caused by a mining-induced seismic event, but that consultants had made no recommendation to stop mining at the 925-metre level where Mr Knight was killed, and where part of the mine collapsed following two previous rock falls in 2005.

The inquest is expected to tour the Beaconsfield mine on Wednesday.

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