Queensland Mining Industry Health & Safety Conference: Contractor Guide

The Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference (QMIHSC) is Australia's premier mining health and safety conference. It has run annually for more than three decades and is governed by a conference committee drawn from across the Queensland resources sector — operators, industry associations, unions and safety and health representatives. Unlike a trade show, QMIHSC is a working conference: keynotes, workshops, panel discussions and case studies aimed squarely at reducing harm on Queensland mine sites.

The 37th Annual QMIHSC runs Sunday 16 to Wednesday 19 August 2026 at The Star Gold Coast, Broadbeach. The 2026 theme is 'Our Greatest Resource, Our People'. Sunday is workshop day, with the main conference running Monday to Wednesday. Early bird registration closed 3 July 2026 — check qmihsconference.org.au for current registration rates and the final program.

Expect keynote presentations, interactive workshops and panel discussions covering critical control management, respirable dust and diesel particulate matter, psychosocial hazards and mental health, fatigue, vehicle and mobile plant interaction, emergency response, and lessons learned from serious accidents and high-potential incidents. Sessions on innovation and technology in health and safety run alongside regulatory updates from Resources Safety & Health Queensland.

QMIHSC content counts toward Continuing Professional Development for the Interim Queensland Practising Certificate. Attendance earns 6 CPD points for the Sunday workshops and 6 points for the main conference Monday to Wednesday — rising to 12 for the main conference if you present. That makes it one of the most efficient ways for Queensland site safety professionals to keep their certification current.

QMIHSC draws Site Senior Executives, safety and health representatives, WHS and HSE managers, superintendents, supervisors, regulators and frontline workers. For a mining contractor, the highest-value combination is your WHS manager, an operations manager and a senior supervisor. Contractors who work across multiple Bowen Basin, Central Queensland and North West Minerals Province sites get a rare chance to hear how every operator is interpreting the same obligations.

QMIHSC is a Queensland health and safety conference — technical, regulator-adjacent and focused on reducing harm. QME (Queensland Mining & Engineering Exhibition) in Mackay is a trade exhibition built around equipment, technology and supplier relationships. The NSW Mining HSEC Conference is the NSW equivalent of QMIHSC, but broader — it covers environment and community alongside health and safety, and includes the HSEC Awards. If you operate across both states, the NSW and Queensland events are complementary, not duplicates.

Come with your own numbers ready — TRIFR, high-potential incident rate, training and competency completion, pre-start compliance, corrective action closeout times. The conversations that matter at QMIHSC are technical, and the contractors who stand out are the ones who can talk about their own performance in specifics rather than slogans. Pick the workshops that match your actual risk profile, and send people who can implement what they hear when they get back to site.

Under the Queensland Coal Mining Safety and Health Act and Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act, obligations flow to every person at a mine — including contractors. Operators verify that through prequalification platforms like Avetta, Cm3, Pegasus and Rapid Global, and through audit. Contractors who can produce live evidence of training currency, medicals, inductions, pre-starts, hazard reports and closed-out actions get invited to price work. Those running spreadsheets increasingly don't.