Could You Prove It to a Judge?

If something went wrong on site tomorrow and you ended up in court, could you prove you were compliant? Not “we thought we were.” Not “we’re pretty sure HR had that on file.” Not “the client collects all that in their portal.”

Could you confidently produce – on demand – the exact copy of the relevant licence, Verification of Competency (VoC), medical, Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS), permit, or plant log that shows you did the right thing at the right time?

Because in Australia’s mining industry right now, “saying you’re compliant” carries zero weight if you can’t back it with instantly accessible evidence. Regulators, investigators, and ultimately judges don’t care what your intent was. They care what you can prove.

Recent reports from regulators show clearly where things are heading. In New South Wales, the mining regulator has reported an increase in incidents and a stronger focus on how risks are managed and documented, as outlined in the Quarterly Safety Report (July–September 2025). In Queensland, the 2025 industry-wide safety reset led by Resources Safety and Health Queensland signals a no-nonsense approach where contractors are firmly in the spotlight. In simple terms: more incidents are being reported, the rules and oversight are tightening, and contractors are under closer scrutiny than ever. When something goes wrong, the first thing investigators look at is your documentation.

Across Australian mining contractors, the compliance “horror stories” are depressingly predictable. The pattern repeats:

1. Expired licences and tickets

People are working on site with licences or tickets that quietly expired months ago. Everyone assumes someone else is tracking renewals, but no one actually is. The problem only comes to light when there’s an incident or an audit, and by then it’s too late to fix.

2. Missing or incomplete VoCs

The worker might be experienced and even hold the right ticket, but the formal Verification of Competency can’t be produced. Maybe it was emailed once. Maybe it’s on someone’s laptop. Maybe it was never filed properly. To a regulator, “we did it but lost it” looks very similar to “we never did it.”

3. Wrong or outdated SWMS and procedures

Work is carried out using an old SWMS or Job Safety Analysis (JSA) that doesn’t reflect current controls. The updated document exists somewhere, but it wasn’t the one actually used or signed on the day. When there’s an investigation, the only thing that matters is which version was in place, who saw it, and when they signed it.

4. Gaps in medicals, permits and plant records

Medicals are done once and then forgotten, with no proper system to track when they expire. High-risk work is done under permits or isolations that can’t be found later. Plant and equipment logs sit on clipboards, in spreadsheets or Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) portals, and when something fails, you can’t easily prove it was inspected or maintained as required. 

Each of these on its own is bad enough. Combine a few in a single incident, and you’re staring down site shutdowns, contractual fallout, regulator action, and potentially criminal charges for individuals.

Mining is one of the most heavily regulated industries in Australia. When something goes wrong, regulators don’t just look at what happened on the day – they look at what you can prove you did in the weeks, months and years leading up to it.

Companies can face serious fines, enforcement action and shutdowns. Directors, officers and senior leaders can face personal liability if they’re found not to have met their duties. Supervisors and frontline leaders can also be exposed if they “should have known” about gaps in competency, documentation or controls.

In that environment, it’s not enough to rely on a client portal or a few shared folders and hope everything is there when you need it. If your evidence lives in other people’s systems, scattered across emails, laptops and site offices, you don’t really control your risk – and “we thought the client had that on file” won’t carry much weight in front of a regulator or a judge.

That’s why contractors need to own their evidence.

Before the next audit, mobilisation, or board meeting, ask yourself:

If there were a serious incident tomorrow, and a regulator or judge asked for our proof of compliance, could we produce it – quickly, completely, and confidently?

If the honest answer is “probably not,” or “only if we had weeks to dig,” then now is the time to tighten things up – not after something goes wrong.

With GO! Site Ready, all of your critical compliance documentation - licences, tickets, VoCs, medicals, inductions, SWMS acknowledgements, permits, and plant and equipment records - lives in a system you control. It’s backed up, organised and separated from your clients’ platforms, so you’re not dependent on whether a mine site has kept or deleted your records.

If an incident or audit occurs, you’re able to quickly show:

• Irrefutable records of which workers were on site and in what roles.
• Their current licences, competencies and medicals, with dates.
• History and copies of what versions were held at the time of the incident.
• The permits, isolations, inspections and maintenance linked to the work or equipment involved.

That’s the difference between saying, “We take safety and compliance seriously” and being able to demonstrate it with solid, defensible evidence. In a regulator interview or a courtroom, the second one is what counts.