Clause · Energy, Resources & Mining
Clause: autonomous and AI-enabled equipment in mining services contracts
Contract clause allocating safety-case, validation, human supervision, change control, incident, data and liability responsibilities for autonomous haulage, drilling and other AI-enabled plant on a mine site.
- Kind
- Clause. Wording to drop into a longer document.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales, Queensland
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use in a mining services, equipment supply or technology contract where the contractor supplies or operates autonomous or AI-enabled plant. Do not use to shift work health and safety duties; they cannot be contracted out.
How AI may be used
AI may prepare variants of the clause for different plant and contract models, but a lawyer must review every version because safety duties cannot be contracted out and the regimes differ by state and mine type.
AI may
- Draft variants of the clause for supply-only, supply-and-operate and technology licence models.
- Compare a counterparty's autonomy terms with this clause and list gaps.
- Build an obligations table from the final clause for the site's contract manager.
AI must not
- Must not decide which party holds a statutory duty or who must notify the regulator.
- Must not remove or soften clause 1.2 (no transfer of WHS duties).
- Must not draft an indemnity or insurance term covering WHS fines or penalties.
The lawyer checks
- The clause is consistent with the site's safety and health management system and principal hazard management plans.
- Regulator notification responsibilities match the applicable mine safety law.
- Nothing indemnifies or insures a party against WHS penalties (s 272A).
- Data and model-training terms match the client's IP and confidentiality position.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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