Paladin Energy aims to crack uranium big league with Canadian takeover
Paladin would churn out 10% of global uranium output after combining production of its Namibian mine with Fission’s Canadian project.
The Australian government launched a Resources Sector Jobs Board so employers can prove they made the job widely available to citizens before they apply for guest workers.
The job board is free and, according to Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Dave Oliver, “. . . would provide safeguards to ensure that resources companies explored options of employing Australian workers before seeking to use temporary migration.”
The job board comes out of a move by Gina Rinehart’s company that hired about 1,700 guest workers for the Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara . Unions say Australian workers were not given a fair crack at the jobs.
“We are pleased that the Government has responded to the initial concerns raised by unions about the Roy Hill Enterprise Migration Agreement,” says Oliver.
“At the time of the announcement, there had been no independent evidence to back up claims by mining magnates like Gina Rinehart that there aren’t enough Australian workers to meet the needs of future resources projects.”
The head of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union was more dismissive.
“Those who have bothered to address the issues at all have repeated the inane mantra that the mining boom and guest labour are in “the national interest”, and that there are no Australians able to do the work,” said Dave Noonan, national secretary of the union.
2 Comments
C Smeal
I find it hard to believe that the resource sector and governments didnt invest in the development of local skilled workers at the time of project planning? What is the lead time on a major project? Ten, fifteen years? Any failure to include scoping labour requirements in project design would appear to be either a deliberate or incompetent decision. I dont believe that professional planners for such huge projects arent completely inept. Draw your own conclusions.
Michael Gault
I have got 15years minning construction experience im a australian from a pioneering family,when gina put up her composary add for workers up on seek for the construction workers on roy hills myself and three friends with extensive experience all put in for it.the add was posted on seek for only a couple of houres,guess what all four of us never herd inything or got a responce about the job,iv always got every job that iv ever aplied for due to my experience,this onley proves to me that they dont want to pay the local workers cause its a known fact that overseas workers dont get the same pay rates as us