Recommended Reading

Reasonably Practicable

How Australian Courts Decide Criminal Responsibility After Workplace Harm

by Tom Bourne · Independently Published · December 2025 · 110 pages

Reasonably Practicable examines how Australian courts determine criminal responsibility following workplace fatalities, industrial manslaughter, and officer liability. Drawing on analysis of 20 real Australian court cases, Bourne explains exactly how judges interpret the phrase "reasonably practicable" — the standard at the heart of every WHS prosecution.

Written for safety professionals, supervisors, managers, and anyone responsible for decision-making in high-risk environments, this book answers the question every mining professional should be able to answer: what does it actually mean to do enough?

What You'll Learn

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"Reasonably practicable" is the most important phrase in Australian workplace health and safety law — and most people working in mining have never seen it properly defined. Tom Bourne's book closes that gap in 110 readable pages. If you're a supervisor, manager, or safety professional in the mining industry, this is the one book that will change how you think about your legal obligations on site.

— MINRES.edu.au Editorial Team

Extreme Operational Excellence

Applying the US Nuclear Submarine Culture to Your Organisation

by Matthew DiGeronimo & Bob Koonce · Outskirts Press · September 2016 · 312 pages

How does a group of 130 men with an average age of 25 operate a nuclear power plant in the ocean's harshest environments while conducting complex clandestine operations — with zero tolerance for error? The answer lies in a culture of Extreme Operational Excellence.

DiGeronimo and Koonce draw on their careers as US Navy nuclear submarine officers to show how the same principles that keep submarines safe can be applied to any high-stakes organisation — including mining operations where the cost of failure is measured in lives.

What You'll Learn

Affiliate link — supports MINRES.edu.au at no extra cost to you.

The nuclear submarine community runs the most demanding operations on earth with near-zero incident rates. This book translates that culture into practical tools any mining leader can use. If you want to understand what a genuine safety culture looks like — not just the paperwork, but the mindset — this is required reading.

— MINRES.edu.au Editorial Team