OceanaGold’s Waihi Operation Mines Rescue Team has placed second overall at the recent 2026 South Australian Mines Emergency Response Competition (SAMERC), achieving four first places and Best Captain – all while competing with borrowed equipment.

Picture arriving at one of Australia’s most demanding emergency response competitions without a single piece of your own gear and a new-to-role team captain. That’s where our Waihi team found themselves. They adapted, borrowed, and improvised in scenarios – and came home with some of the strongest results in the field.

It’s a result that says a lot about the readiness of our people, the strength of our team, and the safety culture we foster every day across our operations.

What is SAMERC?

The South Australian Mines Emergency Response Competition is an annual event that brings mine rescue teams from across Australia and New Zealand together to test their skills, capability and readiness to respond to realistic, high-pressure emergency scenarios.

Its purpose is simple: to foster safer workplaces. Teams learn from each other, share best practice and build response capability to real-life mine emergencies. The competition started in 2010 as a volunteer-run initiative with just three teams. This year it drew a record 12 teams.

Why Waihi competed as a standalone team

For the past two years, Waihi joined forces with our Macraes Operation to compete as a combined OceanaGold New Zealand team. This year, with Macraes preparing to host the New Zealand Mines Rescue Competition in late November, Waihi stepped up and entered on its own.

Competing with borrowed gear across nine emergency scenarios

International travel restrictions meant the team couldn’t bring its own equipment. So they did what good rescue teams do – they adapted. With help from fellow competitors, they borrowed what they needed and improvised where they had to. It was a real-world reminder of what emergency response is all about: collaboration under pressure.

Teams worked through nine multi-discipline scenarios designed to mirror real emergencies: surface rescue; road crash rescue; industrial rescue; vertical rescue; confined space rescue; mass casualty response; firefighting; breathing apparatus search and rescue; and a team skills challenge.

How did the Waihi team perform?

The team placed second overall and earned seven awards across the nine events:

• 1st – Road Crash Rescue
• 1st – Surface Rescue
• 1st – Team Skills
• 1st – Team Safety
• 2nd – Confined Space Rescue
• 2nd – Industrial Rescue
• Best Captain – Jesse Laughton

The real rewards: leadership, learning and character

For our Waihi Health, Safety & Training Manager, Dave Oliver, trophies are just a bonus.

"We participate to learn, to share, to develop – not just our emergency response abilities, but also our leadership skills, our people skills, our personal development. These are the real rewards of participating in competitions like this. While the competition results were impressive, the leadership and character displayed by the team were equally significant."

Dave says that over the past three years, the Australian mining industry has come to recognize OceanaGold not only for our team’s technical capability at SAMERC, but for the professionalism, leadership and values demonstrated by our people.

What’s next: the New Zealand Mines Rescue Competition

In late November 2026, our Macraes Operation will host the New Zealand Mines Rescue Competition – the second time the event has run, following the first in 2014. Teams from Waihi and Macraes will compete alongside teams from the coal industry and the New Zealand Mines Rescue Service.

Waihi will field a fresh team for the event – so watch this space!