Authorities say lives are at risk from the lack of uniform OHS laws on mine sites.

The Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Reform Council says Australia needs a complete set of national occupational health and safety laws covering mines and other resource projects.

The changes are part of the recommendations put forth by COAG in its final report on developing a ‘seamless national economy’.

COAG says setting up a broad health and safety regime for the mining industry would require the standardisation of laws, training, codes of practice, enforcement, and data collection.

Fatal incidents at mine sites have increased in recent years, with the industry claiming ten lives in 2013.

The report also says attempts to unify laws have so far have been sluggish, a number of targets set for 2012-2013 now well overdue, and there have been few outcomes from five years of reform talks.

Some COAG safety reforms have been put in place with varying levels of industry uptake.

A National Mine Safety Database has been in the works for a number of years, but reports say not a single company has entered any data into it. This may be because “a number of governments have reported that the entry of data into the database is not required until the Occupational Health and Safety laws commence in their jurisdictions,” COAG says.

Certain mine safety provisions have been enacted by the Commonwealth, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, but these are only parts of the national Work Health and Safety Regulations administered by Safe Work Australia.

New South Wales has passed some of the mine safety laws, but has not continued with regulation that would put the laws into actual operation.

Queensland and Western Australia have not yet taken steps to introduce the suggested laws.