Mine Manager Certificate of Competency QLD: Requirements, Law Exam, Oral

In a Queensland underground coal mine, the underground mine manager must hold a first class certificate of competency for an underground mine and the practising certificate that goes with it (Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999, s 60(5)). That certificate is what most people mean by the "mine manager certificate of competency". The Board of Examiners grants it after checking your experience and qualifications, then examining you: a legislation (law) exam first, then an oral exam.

This guide covers the first class certificate for underground coal only: the experience the Board asks for and how it counts your hours, the qualifications and endorsements, the law exam and the oral, the step-by-step process and what the certificate lets you do. It ends with a short comparison with the new surface mine manager's certificate for open-cut coal mines. For the law itself, see our Queensland coal mining law exam guide and our Regulation 2017 summary.

This is a plain-English study guide, not legal advice. The Board of Examiners decides eligibility, and its current checklist, the Act and the Regulation are what apply. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ) or the Board of Examiners.

RSHQ First Class Mine Manager (Coal, UG) work history template; RSHQ Examinations (updated 28 Oct 2026); RSHQ Certificates of competency (last updated 29 Oct 2026). Checked 6 Nov 2026.

Section 60 of the Act applies to every underground coal mine. The site senior executive (SSE) must appoint an underground mine manager to control and manage the mine (s 60(2)), and the coal mine operator or SSE "must not appoint a person as an underground mine manager unless the person has" a first class certificate of competency for an underground mine and the practising certificate the Board requires for it (s 60(5)). The SSE can be appointed underground mine manager, but only by the coal mine operator (s 60(3)).

The same certificate matters in four other places:

Two more appointment rules sit in s 60: a person can be underground mine manager for more than 1 mine at the same time only with the chief inspector's written approval (s 60(13)), and the coal mine operator must make sure that an SSE appointing the manager appoints an employee of the operator, an associated entity of it, or an entity that employs or engages 80% or more of the coal mine workers at the mine (s 60(14)). If the manager is temporarily absent, the person who appointed them must appoint someone to act in the role, and if the office is vacant they may (s 60A). The operator must make sure the acting manager meets the same competency requirement, and that an acting appointment lasts no more than 12 weeks from the day the vacancy or absence began, unless the acting manager is an employee of the operator, an associated entity, or an entity that employs or engages 80% or more of the mine's workers (s 60A(4) to (6)).

Source: Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 ss 60 and 60A (current as at 1 July 2026); Regulation s 210 (current as at 1 September 2026); RSHQ coal mining competencies, rows 3 and 6 (updated 26 May 2026).

The first class certificate is not an SSE notice. To be SSE of an underground mine you need a site senior executive notice and its practising certificate (s 54(4)), which is a separate Board qualification with its own checklist: see our SSE notice guide. Every other statutory role at a coal mine (supervisor, ventilation officer, electrical and mechanical engineering managers, and others) has its own requirements, which we cover in a separate guide.

The Board's work history template for the first class certificate says the minimum is at least five years' practical underground coal mining experience, of a standard acceptable to the Board, in an underground coal mine. It then lists what that experience should include:

Source: RSHQ First Class Mine Manager (Coal, underground) work history template, section 8, and the 1st class checklist, read 6 Nov 2026. The template does not say whether these blocks overlap; the checklist lists the first three. If your history does not fit neatly, ask the Board of Examiners Secretary before you apply.

The template also lists the systems your work summary should show you have established, implemented, applied and monitored, in three groups: coal mining (including at least 3 years directly supervising mining in one or more of bord and pillar, place changing, longwall, punch mining, tunnel access mining, outburst, spontaneous combustion, gas drainage or inrush), hazard monitoring and the safety and health management system (ventilation, gas, strata, spontaneous combustion, emergency preparedness and incident investigation, inrush), and support systems (risk management, transport and other systems). The Board says job titles alone are not acceptable evidence: give specific examples, the equipment, the dates and where in the mine.

This is where most people's questions about "hours" come from. The template allows two ways to claim:

By our arithmetic, five years of 52 weeks at 40 hours is 10,400 hours. That figure is not in the template; it is just the Board's 40-hour week applied to the five years. Each entry in the template asks for the dates, roster type, hours per shift and number of shifts completed, and the underground mine manager who was appointed at the operation at the time must sign it. If you cannot get a signature from a past employer, you can give a statutory declaration instead.

If your mine has no longwall or place change mining, the template says you can make a written submission to the Board explaining how you have gained exposure, such as visits to other operations or a fixed secondment, and contact the Board for guidance.

The 1st class underground mine manager (Coal) checklist asks for all of the following, with every qualification verified by a Justice of the Peace or a Commissioner of Declarations:

Source: RSHQ Board of Examiners, Application checklist, 1st class underground mine manager (Coal), read 6 Nov 2026. RSHQ's competency list also asks a working underground mine manager to hold RIIRIS601E (or an equivalent, MINE7033 or GMIRM) with the certificate.

If you hold a qualification the checklist does not name, RSHQ's legislation-sections fact sheet says you need a statement from an Australian university, Engineers Australia or an Australian registered training organisation (RTO) that it is equivalent, for the Board to review.

There is a deadline: RSHQ says you must complete both the application and the examination process within 3 years of submitting your application, or you have to apply again. Written exams are held monthly in Brisbane, Dysart, Mackay, Moranbah and Rockhampton (and Townsville and Mount Isa depending on availability), and you can ask to sit at a courthouse, library, school or similar government office with an external supervisor. We do not quote dates: RSHQ publishes the 2026 and 2027 written examination schedules on its Examinations page.

Source: RSHQ Certificates of competency (last updated 29 Oct 2026) and Examinations (updated 28 Oct 2026); Regulation schedule 8, part 1; RSHQ fees fact sheet 2026-27; Business Queensland Board of Examiners page (last updated 9 Oct 2026).

RSHQ says the coal mining exam is a 2-hour, 2-part, closed book exam on the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 and the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, and the pass mark is 70% for each part. Questions may be short answer or multiple choice depending on the competency, and cover the legislation relevant to the position as well as general health and safety topics. Format, the resit rules and what to read are in our law exam guide; this section is about what a first class candidate should expect.

RSHQ has not published a section list for the first class coal exam (its legislation-sections fact sheet covers only the new manager certificates). The underground mine manager is named in dozens of Regulation sections, so for this certificate expect the whole of the underground side of the law. A few examples of duties the Act and the Regulation put on the manager by name:

Source: CMSH Act s 60 and CMSH Regulation 2017 (current as at 1 September 2026), sections named. For the recognised standards behind s 261 and others, see our recognised standards guide.

RSHQ says underground certificates of competency will move to a 3-stage examination process in 2027, and that it will tell industry the exam structure as each phase starts. (The late 2026 or early 2027 date RSHQ gives for first class mine managers is for mineral mines and quarries, MMQ, not coal.) For the new surface manager certificates the 3 stages are an online law exam, an online written technical exam and an oral; RSHQ's guide to the managers' technical exam describes it as closed book and online, with 5 long-answer technical questions in 100 minutes, set at AQF level 6, about 300 words each. If you apply around the change, ask the Board of Examiners Secretary which process your application will follow.

You can sit the oral only after you pass the law exam. RSHQ describes it as an oral panel interview; it does not publish the questions or a marking guide, so we do not guess at them. What RSHQ does publish is what happens if you do not pass, and it is stricter than for the written exam:

Source: RSHQ Examinations, oral exam resit conditions (updated 28 Oct 2026).

Three preparation habits we suggest, given that the panel is set up to test whether you can manage an underground mine. Know your own mine's principal hazard management plans and how they meet the law, because the work history template already asks you to show you have led parts of them. Be able to explain the legal duty behind a decision, not just the practice: who holds it, and which section says so. And ask your SSE and manager for mock panels, since their endorsement is part of the application and, after a failed oral, of the resit report.

These two are our own, written from the current Act. They are not Board of Examiners questions.

These questions play in our practice player: press Start, answer them, and the result page explains each answer with the section it comes from. They are our own practice questions on the Act and the Regulation.

Open-cut coal mines now have their own manager's certificate. Under s 58A of the Act, the SSE of a surface mine must appoint a surface mine manager to control and manage the mine, who must hold a surface mine manager's certificate of competency and its practising certificate. RSHQ says this certificate was introduced in June 2025, that from 1 June 2026 every applicant goes through the full process (online law exam, online written technical exam and oral), and that from June 2030 sites must appoint people who hold it.

Source: CMSH Act ss 58A and 60; RSHQ Surface Mine Manager checklist and 1st class checklist (read 6 Nov 2026); RSHQ Certificates of competency, key dates for new certificates (last updated 29 Oct 2026); fees fact sheet 2026-27. The open-cut examiner is a different, lower certificate: see our open-cut examiner guide.

If you already hold an equivalent certificate of competency from another Australian or New Zealand jurisdiction, RSHQ says you can apply for mutual recognition, for the certificates listed in the fees fact sheet. There are two pathways: sit the Queensland law exam to show you know the Queensland Act and Regulation, or, if you have a job lined up at a Queensland site, give a signed statement from that site's SSE confirming they have assessed your knowledge of the Queensland legislation. You send certified copies of your current registration documents (and your practising certificate if you apply from New South Wales or New Zealand), and the Board then decides whether further assessment, such as a law exam and an oral panel interview, is needed.

Source: RSHQ Mutual recognition of competency (updated 17 Dec 2025).