Our aim is to operate a safe and healthy workplace, with no fatalities or injuries. In the reporting year we achieved this target.

AWE maintains a strong focus on the safety of our employees, contractors and the communities in which we operate. We believe that all workplace accidents and injuries are preventable and continue to aspire to be injury free. Regardless of the severity of the injury, we maintain our belief that our safety performance can be improved, and that no task is so important that we risk an injury to our people. Our business relies on contractors to provide labour and for specialist skills and services. We value our contractors and their safety in exactly the same way we do our employees, and continue to work with contracting companies to improve our health and safety management systems.

We are pleased to report that over the period from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009, our lost time injury frequency rate ("LTIFR") rate was zero across all of our sites. LTIFR is where an employee or contractor is absent from work for a full shift as a result of a work related injury. At our operated sites, Tui Field and the Western Region - our LTIFR reduced from 3.5 in 2008 to 0 in 2009. Our total recordable injury frequency rate at our operated sites remained fairly consistent in 2008 and 2009. TRIFR includes lost time injuries, medical treatment injuries and restricted work injuries to employees and contractors.

We have refined our measurement of safety and note that our 2008 safety statistics now include our working hours from our offices in addition to sites to give a more complete picture of the safety across our operations. We have updated our 2008 and 2009 statistics to reflect this.

Looking forward

In 2010, we aim to achieve zero injuries at all sites, and to roll out further safety initiatives including improved application of risk assessment and increased training of employees and contractors.