The number of Indigenous people working on major mining projects in Western Australia has skyrocketed over the past five years.
In the resource-rich Pilbara region, big companies like Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Chevron and Fortescue Metals are keen to hire as many Aboriginal people as they can, and they are keen to work. Brendon Kelly is a 40-year-old Indigenous man with five children living in Port Hedland.
BK, as he is known to his mates, decided three years ago he wanted to be a part of the biggest mining boom the country has ever seen. He undertook a course with Ngarda Civil and Mining, one of the largest Indigenous training groups, and now works as a drill and blast engineer at BHP’s Yarrie iron ore mine, about 200 kilometres north-east of Port Hedland.
“There are four Aboriginal people on our crew, it’s pretty multicultural out here on site at the moment,” he said. “It’s a really good thing, the more the better.” BK is urging others to consider getting training. “There’s better security and independence for yourself and your family,” he said.
“The fact that you’ve done a good day’s work and come pay day, you’ve got the money to organise things for your children, is even better.”
Osmond Dingo is an Indigenous, fly in-fly out worker at a Rio Tinto iron ore mine in Paraburdoo.
He completed an eight-week TAFE course before enrolling in a traineeship program with Rio Tinto.
“They’re very good people, they look after you up here,” he said.
“There are a couple of other local boys from here doing this, there’s two from a community just out of Tom Price and two from Tom Price.”
Like, Mr Kelly, he is telling his family and friends to get involved.
Numbers
In the mid 1990s, less than half a percent of Rio Tinto’s workforce was Indigenous.
It’s now the largest private employer of Aboriginal people in the country.
Last year, it employed 1,100 Aboriginal people, representing 11 per cent of its overall workforce in WA; 400 more than two years ago.
Rio says it hopes Indigenous people will be 20 per cent of its total workforce by 2015.
BHP Billiton employs 10,000 people in the Pilbara, with just under 1,000 of those Aboriginal; 300 more than in early 2010.
Fortescue Metals Group has also seen a large increase in the number of Indigenous employees in the past two years, from 175 to 412.
They represent about 10 per cent of its total workforce.
Thirty per cent of the people working on the group’s port operations in the Pilbara are Aboriginal while the company has a target of employing a total of 500 in the near future.
For the rest of this article, please go to the [Australian] ABC news website: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-31/indigenous-numbers-increase-in-mining-industry/4167230?section=business