There is no single published list of what a Queensland mine requires before somebody works, because there isn't one requirement — there are layers of them, set by different bodies under different legislation, renewed on different clocks.
This is the list, with the two numbers that actually matter: how long each lasts, and how long it takes to arrange.
The list
Standard 11 — generic coal mine induction Issued by an RTO as skill set RIISS00034. Six accredited units. Required for Queensland coal mine work under the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999. Portable between Queensland coal sites. Lasts: five years. Takes: two to three days of training; two to four weeks to get a course place.
Coal mine workers' health assessment (formerly known as the coal board medical) Arranged by the employer through an Appointed Medical Adviser on the RSHQ-approved list. Includes respiratory screening — chest X-ray and spirometry. Lasts: five years, and on entry to the industry. Takes: eight to twelve weeks to get an appointment in the Bowen Basin. Longer in Emerald, and worse around shutdowns. This is the long pole. Book it first.
Site-specific induction Issued by the operator, about their site. Not portable — every client runs its own. Lasts: set by the operator; twelve months is common. Takes: two to four weeks, subject to their scheduling.
Verification of competency (VOC) Issued by the employer or the site. Confirms this person can do this task, on this machine, in these conditions, now. Lasts: set by the site; twelve to twenty-four months is typical. Takes: days, if you have an assessor. Longer if you don't.
High risk work licence Issued by the state regulator. Forklift, EWP, rigging, dogging, scaffolding, cranes. Nationally recognised. Lasts: five years. Renewed through the regulator, not the RTO. Takes: regulator processing — and if it has lapsed far enough, re-assessment.
Statements of attainment — working at heights, confined space, first aid Issued by an RTO. These do not expire. What expires is the currency period your policy or your client imposes on them. Lasts: whatever the site says. Takes: one to two days of training.
White card — construction induction Required for construction work, not for coal mine work. Sometimes required in addition. Lasts: no expiry date — but it ceases to be valid after two consecutive years without construction work. Takes: under a day.
Client-specific extras Drug and alcohol clearances, additional medicals, portal registration, and whatever else that operator has decided. Lasts: varies. Takes: varies. This is the category that most often stops a mobilisation, because it exists on no published list and lives in an email somebody received.
And then the same question for the plant
A cleared operator with a machine that is overdue for service is still a turnaround, and it is one of the two most common causes of one.
Each site sets its own requirements for equipment: identification, service currency against the manufacturer's intervals, dated inspections and certifications, fitment requirements specific to that operator — fire suppression, isolation, lighting, proximity detection — and registration where it applies.
A machine that satisfies one operator can be short of something at the next.
The three patterns worth noticing
Five-year credentials are invisible to annual reviews. Standard 11, the health assessment and high risk work licences all run on five years. Any process reviewing credentials once a year will look at them four times, see nothing, and find them urgent on the fifth. They also cluster — everybody hired in the same year comes due in the same year, five years later, when nobody is expecting it.
The lead times are wildly different. A single thirty-day expiry alert is far too much notice for an online refresher and nowhere near enough for a medical. Set the lead time per credential, from how long the renewal actually takes in the town your people live in.
Not everything expires on a date. Statements of attainment never expire — a currency period was imposed on them by somebody. A white card expires based on what you have not been doing. Neither behaves like a date field, and a system that assumes they do will report both as current when they are not.
What it adds up to
Six or seven things per person, plus the same question again for every machine, each on a different clock, renewed through a different body, against requirements that differ per client site.
That is genuinely hard, and it is worth saying so — because contracting companies routinely feel they are bad at this when in fact they are doing something with a spreadsheet that the spreadsheet was never shaped for.
The honest test is not whether your folder is complete. It is whether you can answer this, quickly, for any client and any date:
Which of our people and which of our machines are ready for that site on that day, and for the rest, what specifically is missing?
If that takes an afternoon, or only one person can do it, the folder is complete and the answer still is not available — which is the state most businesses are in right up until the morning it matters.
