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Slattery: Technology and safety hand in hand for BHP

BHP Slattery

BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery told Safe to Work the mining giant’s safety focus is inextricable from technology and productivity in 2025.

Speaking at the Melbourne Mining Club Luncheon yesterday, Slattery told the audience Australia’s skills and talent are “under threat”.

“We must be champions of more competitive settings,” she said. “We cannot change the rocks we have, but we can change the enablers and settings in their discovery, extraction and development.”

According to Slattery, nearly half of the global skilled engineering workforce are set to retire in the next decade, meaning majors like BHP are preparing for an even more pressing skills drought than the sector is already facing.

But as new graduates enter the industry to fill the gap, there are concerns about how they will be kept safe on the job.

Safe to Work spoke with Slattery after the event, who said increasing productivity and investing in new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) will be key drivers of not only attracting new talent to the sector, but keeping them safe as well.

“Creating a safe workplace and getting people home safe is table stakes in attracting people and keeping people (in the sector),” Slattery told Safe to Work.

“Technology is actually our friend in this area. Autonomous haulage is removing people from pit environments and interacting with vehicles, and there’s many more examples.

“I think in terms of how we bring that to life … you need to have the right skills the right regulatory environment needs to support that, that’s the goal for an ecosystem that makes it sustainable.

“Technology and productivity and safety very much go hand in hand. If anything, it’s a need for us.”

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