Ban on 9 year old shovel driver upheld in Queensland court

Further news from ‘down under’ on the story of the 9 year boy who was banned from driving a 30t Cat 980H in his grandfather’s quarry by Queensland’s Mine Safety & Health Commissioner reveals that the ruling has been upheld at a local appeal court.

It is understood that wealthy quarry owner, Dirk Karreman, was fighting for his grandson Dane to be allowed to continue to drive the loading shovel for up to 10 hours a day on weekends and holidays at Mt Cotton Quarry, near Brisbane.

Mr Karreman argued that Dane was perfectly able to drive the machine as he had started working at the quarry at the age of six and had already clocked up 500 hours of experience working in a special area cordoned off from the rest of the site.

"It's about a father and a grandfather's rights to train up his own kid." Said Mr Karreman, "We've got advice from occupational therapists, he's gone and got his eyes tested for driving tests and all sorts of stuff’.

In any event, Industrial Court president David Hall determined that the order should remain in force for at least another year because the risk was unacceptable.
"The difficulty here is that the immeasurable risks to Dane are risks which occur in circumstances in which the activity in which he is proposing to engage is unnecessary. In those circumstances, I am not prepared to set aside the review decision of the Chief Inspector of Mines."

So what’s going to change in the next twelve months David?