Workplace safety should always be a priority for the government, Labor’s federal Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon said in a keynote address at a memorial for miners killed at work.
The CFMEU NSW Mining and Energy Northern District held its annual service at the Jim Comerford Memorial Wall on Sunday.
The monument at Aberdare features the names of more than 1800 people who have been killed on mining leases in the Hunter’s coalfields.
Mr Fitzgibbon said it was an honour to be part of “a collective determination to ensure that those who we’ve lost will not be forgotten”.
“For most of its history the industry’s employees were over-worked and under-paid,” he said.
“In the earliest years they worked in the most appalling and dangerous environments.
“That changed as a result of the courage and determination our early trade unionists. And we should never forget, courage it did indeed take.”
Sunday’s service was the CFMEU’s 23rd at the Aberdare memorial site.
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