ILC PUT ABORIGINAL EMPLOYEES AT RISK
In September last year an event happened along the Roper Highway that is just south of Mataranka and heads towards Ngukurr. If this event had happened in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria or any other State it would have caused uproar, Criminal charges laid, Court cases would have followed. Here in the Northern Territory, the Company involved covered their tracks, got people to be silent, then crossed their fingers and hoped ‘lady luck’ would see them through.
An Aboriginal employee, Timmy Watson, of the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) from the small community of Minyerri was working at the ILC leased Station Hodgson Downs. This young man had no drivers licence, never had driven on a bitumen road before and had no training what so ever from his employer, the ILC, in any sort of vehicle driving. Regardless, working for a government organisation like the ILC there are rules to keep people safe and out of harm’s way.
While the ILC are often in the news gloating about all the training they provide to Aboriginal people one has to wonder what real expectations the ILC hope for as in six years of training at Hodgson Downs, the ILC has not taught ONE of their Aboriginal trainees to obtain a drivers licence. A licence is the one feature an employee needs to obtain employment and employer needs of his staff to let him work his business legally and in line with OHS insurance requirements.
On this ill fated day in September, the ILC representative at the station, Murray Hockey, gave instructions to this young Indigenous boy to drive on his own to another part of the property. The trip would encompass 35km along the dirt Hodgson River road then 35km along the Roper Highway, a narrow strip of rough bitumen that is busy with holiday makers towing caravans and fishing boats.
This young boy got to within a few hundred metres west of Packsaddle Creek on the highway and went to overtake a caravan. He had to half leave the bitumen, he over corrected once past the caravan and then turn wildly 180 degrees then rolled the ILC work Hilux. The old couple in the caravan stopped and made sure he was alright. They helped him start the car and the young boy continued onto where the ILC representative told him to go. On arrival at the Strangways cattle yards his work mates saw the car and the shocked condition he was in and straight away set in action a call for an ambulance. The ambulance met the lad and took him to Katherine Hospital.
When this lad was released he had to find his own way back to Minyerri and booked the Bodi Bus and travelled home on his own. No ILC representatives had been in contact with him or even visited him in hospital.
The ILC representative called his boss in Adelaide Gary Cook to tell him what had happened and instructed this boss that he had contacted Police about the accident. Then Gary Cook chastised this man and told him if no one had been killed he should have kept it quite and not informed the Police as the driver was a boy with no licence. Another idea was thrown around that if it hadn’t been reported perhaps in a week or two it could be reported by a licensed employee and then vehicle compensation could have been sought. Perhaps it still was?
To keep the appropriate Government departments out of the picture the ILC didn’t report the roll over and hospitalisation of the young boy to CommCare as they, the ILC, deemed it an accident not worthy of report. As an employee we all get told to report an injury no matter how small, as these injuries can develop later in life. The idea that you would keep a roll over and the injury of a young boy away from CommCare is foolish.
How worried was the ILC? Today this young lad is still employed by the ILC and still has had no training or help by the ILC to obtain a drivers licence. One would think that after an accident that could have seen that young man in a wheelchair, dead or with brain damage that programmes would have been put in place to address a dangerous situation. Imagine if the ILC had been the cause of killing the two in the caravan? But then, perhaps the ILC may be thinking ‘lady luck’ is in their favour and now they have got away with it, they can continue business as usual.
By Mick Estens - 0428 936 305