Forty years, 35 companies, $80 million a year in income and just one major customer. The maths just don’t seem to add up for Aboriginal contractors in the Pilbara, which say after four decades of development they are still being overlooked.
FORTY years, 35 companies, $80 million a year in income and just one major customer.
The maths just don’t seem to add up for Aboriginal contractors in the Pilbara, which say after four decades of development they are still being overlooked by almost every resource company except BHP Billiton.
Pilbara Aboriginal Contractors Association chairman Barry Taylor believes that, not only has progress been slow for indigenous business in the region, new opportunities for work have dried up in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Mr Taylor said there should be mandatory use of indigenous contractors and potentially a use-it-or-lose-it policy on small tenements that would allow indigenous contractors to operate small mines from leases considered uneconomic by existing miners.
On the positive side, Mr Taylor singled out BHP Billiton Iron Ore for its efforts to contract indigenous companies, notably a $350 million five-year deal with Ngarda Civil and Mining to manage its Yarrie iron ore mine.
At the time, BHP Billiton Iron Ore president Ian Ashby said the contract was a turning point in the improvement of long-term opportunities in the Pilbara.
However, it seems very little has happened since, beyond what BHP has to offer, which is $80 million a year in contracts.
A BHP Billiton Iron Ore spokesman said the company’s indigenous contracting and economic development strategy was geared toward generational change with business planning horizons of five, 10 and 20 years. It sought to provide opportunities for emerging indigenous businesses to directly engage in the local economy through the provision of goods and services to the company’s operations.
“Where appropriate, some contracts are structured to achieve both business and social outcomes,” the spokesman said.
For example, Oasis Contracting provides horticulture services to BHP Billiton Iron Ore in Port Hedland but has also assisted in helping indigenous people become work ready through associated literacy and health programs.
Mr Taylor’s criticism of the wider sector included significant contracts awarded to Doorn-Djil Yoordaning Mining and Construction, a subsidiary of major mining contractor Macmahon, which focuses on indigenous employment but is not owned by Aboriginal people.
He said PACA had written to resources companies challenging them about their public statements on supporting indigenous development.
“That has rattled the cage,” Mr Taylor said.
“There is no money coming back into the Pilbara Aboriginal community.
“We are trying to build the economic capacity of the Aboriginal people.”
Mr Taylor paid tribute to former deputy premier Hendy Cowan for kick-starting the indigenous business sector in the 1990s with his creation of the Aboriginal economic unit.
He said it was again time for the state to intervene.
PACA wants the Barnett government to legislate mandatory engagement of qualified Aboriginal businesses in all current and future resource works or contracts in the rich resource Pilbara.
Local Pilbara Aboriginal owned and operated companies provided the best way forward in creating sustainable employment for local Pilbara Aboriginal people, with a resultant flow-on effect to the wider communities, according to the association.
