This presentation introduces real-time strata monitoring technology to the underground hard rock mining sector and explores how continuous monitoring can improve both safety outcomes and operational performance.

Falls of ground remain one of the most significant hazards in underground hard rock mining, particularly in high-stress environments where changing ground conditions can develop rapidly and without visible warning. Traditional monitoring methods such as manual inspections, mechanical extensometers, and periodic convergence measurements have supported the industry for many years; however, they are often reactive rather than predictive. Delayed readings, inconsistent data collection, limited trending capability, and the need for personnel to enter active headings and high-risk zones all increase operational risk and personnel exposure.

As mining operations continue to move toward automation, remote operations, digital control rooms, and zero-exposure work environments, geotechnical monitoring must evolve to support these objectives. Real-time strata monitoring is no longer simply a compliance tool—it is becoming a critical frontline safety system and an important data layer within the modern underground mine.

This presentation will introduce RockMonitor, a real-time remote strata monitoring system designed to provide continuous displacement data, predictive alarm capability, and seamless integration into site control systems and geotechnical workflows. The session will demonstrate how live monitoring improves hazard identification, supports predictive Trigger Action Response Plans (TARPs), reduces the need for manual inspections, and assists geotechnical engineers in optimising support design and rehabilitation planning.

A hard rock case study will also be presented, showing how real-time monitoring improved decision-making, reduced underground exposure, enhanced production continuity, and strengthened broader site safety outcomes.

The session will challenge the industry to reconsider whether periodic monitoring is still sufficient in modern underground operations and ask a simple question: if we can predict failure before exposure, why are we still relying on manual readings?

This presentation examines two recent court decisions – one in New Zealand, one in the United States – that offer senior leaders useful insights into managing their major risks.

In Maritime New Zealand v Gibson, the former Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson, following the August 2020 death of a stevedore who was crushed by a falling container, was convicted under New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for failing to exercise his due diligence duty as an officer. The conviction – the first time the section 44 officer duty has been tested in court against the chief executive of a major New Zealand organisation – was upheld by the High Court on appeal in 2026. In the Boeing Company Derivative Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that shareholders had adequately pleaded that Boeing's directors, following the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes that killed 346 people, had failed in their oversight of the safety of the 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The directors subsequently settled for US$237.5 million paid through their insurers, without admitting wrongdoing.

This is not a legal presentation – its purpose is to examine these two decisions through a practical lens and ask: how should we actually set up our systems, our reporting lines, and the day-to-day behaviours of our directors and executives?

Drawing directly on what Gibson and the Boeing board did and did not do, the session works through what these decisions mean from a practical perspective. How does a senior leader actively go looking for information about critical risk, rather than waiting for it to arrive? What does verifying a control actually look like? How should board papers be designed so that weak signals surface rather than being smoothed away by the time they reach the table? And how do leaders push past the comfortable myths about delegation and trust that both cases expose?

Attendees will leave with a better practical understanding of how boards and executives in the Queensland resources industry can better manage their major risks.