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Location, location, relocation

hile Western “quite creative
WAustralia’s and think outside
hard border to the the box” in order
rest of the country to transport many
through the pan- essential workers
demic has been to site.
frustrating for many, it has given compa- with widespread frustration, including from Over the last six months of 2021, ATPI
nies an insight into what a FIFO workforce mining companies looking to urgently ship chartered close to 280 flights and at one
based entirely within the State would look in critical labour. stage even contemplated commandeering
like on a permanent basis. Speaking to Paydirt prior to the bor- cruise ships to quarantine workers where
Following strong encouragement from der backflip from the McGowan Govern- required.
the State Government, the likes of Rio Tinto ment, Muller said proposed reopening was “The belief was that rather than putting
Ltd, BHP Ltd, Woodside Energy Ltd and poised to have a major impact on the cur- these people into hotels, we would put
Inpex have restructured their recruitment rent labour squeeze. them onto cruise ships that weren’t being
policies to ensure all WA-based FIFO work- “We really see that there is a great op- utilised and we could put these cruise ships
ers are residing within the State by the end portunity for employers in WA to be able into the Gulf of Mexico, for example,” Muller
of 2023. to hire labour outside of WA, to be able to explained.
Corporate travel and logistics specialists bring them in without the quarantine pro- “People would then do their 14 days
ATPI has been assisting companies with cess, obviously with negative COVID tests quarantine on the cruise ship in the Gulf
the transition, moving interstate FIFO work- etc,” he said. of Mexico before being helicoptered from
ers and their families across borders to see “That will have an effect on the labour there onto rigs, etc. It never got off the
what a life in WA would look like on a per- market itself. No doubt, if they’re able to ground, but it was something that we actu-
manent basis. cast the net wider, then I think you’re going ally looked at to see whether it was viable
ATPI regional managing director, Pacific to possibly see some sort of impact on wag- or not.”
and Africa, Peter Muller said the incom- es in WA as well within this arena. It’s prob- Muller was full of praise for the resources
ing employment mandates would be a big ably not significant, but it won’t dampen sector for propping up both the WA and
step-change for all mine workers around any wage enthusiasm that there has been national economy during the pandemic.
the country. where it’s been so difficult to bring people in In particular, he highlighted the collabora-
“We can see it from the bookings that from the rest of the world.” tion within industry which ensured opera-
we’re making that these companies are tak- Moving workers and adhering to the vari- tions continued almost uninterrupted when
ing this very seriously,” he said. ous quarantine requirements around the it could have been so easy to simply shut
“Pre-COVID, I would say something like world has proved a challenge for a travel down.
50% of our FIFO workers were located in logistics company such as ATPI, with Mul- “We saw traditional rivals really coming
WA and about 50% of them were located ler conceding the business had to become together and looking at cost-effective solu-
around the rest of the country or internation- tions to move their crews around,” he said.
ally. As we went into COVID, together with a “Commercial flights are obviously very
number of our businesses that we deal with expensive but individual companies still
– who were pretty far sighted actually – we needed to utilise them…so what we were
had to move a number of families to WA on also able to do as part of that process was
temporary relocations. really facilitate companies working togeth-
“At that time, we moved in a number of er. So companies that traditionally might not
family groups who were temporarily re- necessarily talk to each other, we were able
located for what we believed to be six to facilitate that and say, ‘look, we’ve taken
months, and they’ve been there now for the a charter on behalf of X, Y, and Z, they’re
entire process or period.” going to take up 30 of the 80 available
Having a FIFO workforce based entirely seats on this 250-seat charter, or whatever
within the State will likely go a long way to- the case might be, would you like to utilise
wards addressing its growing skills short- some of the other seats on that?’.
age. According to a recent report from Pit “This is enabled companies to work to-
Crew Consulting Services, an extra 40,000 gether, amortise costs to reduce the overall
workers will be required to fill gaps in the cost of moving people. It’s been a quite an
WA resources sector over the next two interesting scenario.”
years. – Michael Washbourne
WA Premier Mark McGowan’s decision
last month to delay the reopening of both in-
terstate and international borders was met
Peter Muller

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 61