McConnell Dowell - Kidston Indigenous engagement, training & employment activities

The Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project is being built on Ewamian Country, about 270km north-west of Townsville, turning an abandoned gold mine into a power-generating asset that will bring long term benefits to the local community. From the outset, the project began engaging with the local community and identifying opportunities for indigenous people to get exposure to large scale infrastructure development. An Indigenous Engagement Strategy was established, commencing with school visits and the creation of a now very successful partnership with an Indigenous owned and operated Group Training Organisation, Australian Training Works (ATW).

Early on in the project, staff met with Sharon (Ewamian representative) to build the relationship locally and make the connection to ATW, who have been working with Sharon to identify Ewamian community members for potential roles, along with local Indigenous Suppliers.  The MDJH JV reviewed the project’s manning schedule from the outset to identify opportunities to bring people on through ATW. Now, as roles become available on the project, the JV engages first with ATW to source candidates, before going to the wider market.

Some of the success stories include:

• Civil Construction and Business trainees now directly employed by MCD;
• A Mechanical Fitting and an Electrical Apprentice, both performing exceptionally well; and
• An opportunity to provide exposure to the project for eight (8) local Indigenous men through an initial 4-week skills program.

The supply of underground and tunnelling labour has been identified as a risk in Queensland, with future projects like Kidston already in the works.  A strategy was devised to access Commonwealth and State funding (via Construction Skills Queensland) to train the selected cohort of Indigenous candidates, based on a position description outlining the skillsets needed for drill and blast tunnelling and working in an underground construction environment.

In collaboration with ATW, the training program has been a complete success, with all eight new entrants performing beyond expectations after only two months on site.

This program caught the attention of the Queensland Minister for Employment and Training, the Hon. Di Farmer. On Tuesday, 13 December 2022, the project hosted a contingent of special guests, including the Assistant Minister for Hydrogen Development and the 50% Renewable Energy Target by 2030, Lance McCallum. Minister Farmer took great interest in the project and the work being done in partnership with ATW to provide opportunities to local Indigenous people who have found it hard to break into the industry, in some cases, to find long term, meaningful employment.

Recently, the project was visited by David Bindi Hudson, a local man who travelled with a group organised by ATW to film a short documentary – a ‘day in the life’ of an Indigenous worker on the Kidston Hydro Project. David and filmmaker, Colin Pett (Mod Films) have put a few images of their visit into a video, as the background to David’s “Campfire Song on Ewamian Country”. We look forward to the release of the full documentary in the coming weeks.