00:02Mining at arm's length. Truck drivers and drill operators at Australia's biggest gold mine have transitioned to the comfort of
00:11an on-site office.
00:13So we're the first gold mine to put in autonomous trucks and we're now moving towards autonomous drills as well
00:18to really move a lot less people into the mine and a lot less interactions inside the mines.
00:25To improve productivity and worker safety, the industry has been pushing to automate.
00:31The Australian mining industry has been a highly innovative industry for a number of years and certainly over the past
00:37decade, a lot of those innovations have really started to bear fruit.
00:41At this mine, employees have been given a choice to retrain or leave.
00:46Over time, we've reduced some people. We went through a pathway of actually letting some people go that wanted to
00:52continue driving trucks, but the majority of people stuck around.
00:56As automation and artificial intelligence changes the face of mining, unions say companies should tread carefully.
01:03How they actually consult with their workforce and what they do about assuring them and finding them, you know, alternate
01:10duties and supporting them through that process.
01:13We're finding varying levels of engagement and support.
01:18Unions are also concerned about jobs being moved off site.
01:22Some jobs in the Pilbara have been replaced with roles in automated control rooms thousands of kilometres away in Perth.
01:30Federal and state governments have pumped a lot of money into these communities to make them habitable.
01:35If you take those jobs away, what do those communities then become?
01:39A brave new world for the mining industry and its workers.
01:42C oportunities
01:45They have made it from the
Comments