Safety & Compliance

Safety

Under the WHS Act, all PCBU's have a responsibility to ensure that workers are suitably competent for the task they are assigned.  

A Trade Certificate does NOT provide evidence of competency for use of all the welding and allied processes that are required for maintenance welding. 

There are specific hazards and necessary controls required for each welding process. The welder must be familiar with these and demonstrate their ability and knowledge to safely and correctly set-up, operate, and shut-down the various welding processes. 

In particular, Carbon Arc Gouging (CAG) has many specific hazards and welders are not taught how to use it as part of their trade certificate. 

As part of the MWC Assessment process, a formal VoC process is undertaken to determine whether a welder can correctly set-up, safely operate and shut down the following welding and allied processes that are commonly used on a mine site. 

• Carbon Arc Gouging (CAG)

• Manual Metal Arc Welding (MMAW)

• Gas Metal Arc Welding (MMAW)

• Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW)

• Oxy-Acetylene Cutting

• Oxy-fuel heating

There is no other standardised way to determine this. A Trade Certificate III does not necessarily indicate what equipment they are familiar with using - in fact many welders may not be familiar with CAG and FCAW if they have previously worked in a production/fabrication environment, and won't have any formal training in heir safe use. 

NOTE: Safety training is not a set part of the MWC Program. This is an additional module if required. The VoC process is for confirmation only.