At the coalface: the

Candice Burvill says there have been big strides in mining reform but there’s still a long way to go.

WOMEN

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WORDS b GENEVIEVE GANNON PHOTOGRAPHY b RUSSELL JAMES

In the wake of harassment claims and a parliamentary inquiry, The Weekly meets four women stepping boldly into what they hope will be a new era in Australian mining.

Abrilliant blue sky, the vast red earth, pits and trucks and workers in yellow hi-vis. This scene has been the picture of Australian prosperity for decades. But despite our wealth of coal, gold and diamonds putting Australia at the forefront of mining innovation, the number of women in the industry has remained stubbornly low. A push to increase female participation has only managed to lift it from 14 per cent in the 1990s to 18 per cent today.

The masculine workplace culture has been blamed for this trend. More recently, allegations of rampant sexual harassment have revealed a darker side to the problem. Insiders say the industry is headed for a reckoning. uncovered things that are “absolutely heart-wrenching,” says mining board director Susie Corlett. “They can’t be explained away as a few bad eggs. It speaks to systemic structural and cultural issues in the industry that need to be addressed with urgent action.”

But Susie and a new generation of female miners are leading a charge towards a more inclusive, vibrant industry.“It is no coincidence that we have seen a shift in the culture of the mining businesses as we’ve seen the step-up in female directors sitting on boards,” Susie says. And as a woman who has worked in mining for 30 years, she adds,“I’m loving that this conversation is now happening.”

ANNA LEE WINMAR

Trainee Operator on Dump Trucks

The Cat 785D mining truck can carry 150 tonnes and has tyres taller than a grown man. When she’s sitting behind the wheel of one of these beasts, with pop music blaring and the road to herself, Anna Lee Winmar, 32, feels on top of the world. After nine years working as a FIFO cleaner, she made the leap to working on the mines and couldn’t be happier. The FIFO life requires a lot of sacrifice but she knows she is forging a better future for her daughter, and her new role fills her with joy.

“They’re huge, the Cat 785Ds,” she says, her enthusiasm for her new vocation shining through. “It’s crazy but it’s good. I was very nervous at first. I thought, Oh God, people are not going to like me. They’re going to shout at me and stuff. But I love it. I love driving. I never used to.”

Anna works a 2-1 roster, flying to Kalgoorlie for two weeks at a time, then returning home to Perth for one week off. She relishes time at home. Being away from her 14-yearold daughter, Rashaye, is hard, even though they talk every day. “I was 18 when I had her. So I pretty much sacrifice my life to make a better life for her,” she says.

She has previously worked on sites that were “ a bit seedy” but that isn’t the case now. Anna spent eight years trying to get her foot in the door here and she says, “I’m finally in and I’m loving it. The crew’s good. The people – they make it. It’s pretty much my second home.”

ELLE SMART

Metallurgist

Elle Smart planned on being a dentist until she took a job on a mine during a gap year and fell in love with the work.

“They have this amazing equipment that they use to recover the really fine gold and I remember seeing these floating bubbles of gold and thinking how incredible this process was. They were taking a dirty old rock and making it into this gorgeous gold bubble, and I was sold straight away. I applied to switch my degree,” Elle says.

Now a senior metallurgist at the Mt Marion lithium mine, Elle, 27, loves her job, but she’s not blind to the barriers that discourage women from pursuing a career in mining. Straight out of school she landed on her first mine site and found she was the only girl in the camp.

“There was no girls’ bathroom. It was all just a shared thing,” she says. “I rocked up and I was absolutely petrified. It took me a while to come out of my shell, but with the showering thing, the guys were really respectful. I had my own cubical and they stayed away.”

Having grown up with a geologist father and big sister, Elle says she didn’t have “the shock factor” other women might. She worked alongside her sister early on and remembers thinking, “Wow, she’s holding her own and arguing and getting her point across. I’ll be fine. If she can do it, I can do it.”

It didn’t take long for Elle to find her feet, but she acknowledges this isn’t everybody’s experience.“I’ve never had anyone overtly harassing me,” she says, “but I don’t want to give the impression that it’s a great, wonderful place all the time. It is still quite a big boys’ club.”

CANDICE BURVILL

Community Engagement Officer

“From a very young age I learnt to say, ‘Stand up, even though your knees are shaking’, and say, ‘Hey, I don’t like that’,” says Candice Burvill, a First Nations woman who grew up amid the rugged beauty of the Pilbara and began working at a mine at age 19.

The company she was working for presented itself as safe and inclusive, but she knew that wasn’t the reality for Indigenous people – racism was rampant. In the end, the hypocrisy got too much – she had to walk away from a job she loved. “I gave notice over what I didn’t think was right,” she tells The Weekly. “They were promoting something that I didn’t see on the ground.”

For years, Candice, 51, pursued other opportunities. She walked the beat as a cop in Kalgoorlie and even ran her own business but, she says, “the Pilbara draws you back”.

Now, she’s out there again, working as a community engagement officer with Indigenous businesses and individuals, creating pathways to work and economic empowerment. It’s a role she wishes had existed when she was starting out. Candice says she has seen reform in mining, and that gives her hope. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but it’s supported from the top down,” she says. Meanwhile, she’s determined to empower the workforce from the ground up. She knows that, if she can help someone find a role that’s right for them, it can make a difference for their family and their community as well.

“I like to get out and meet people, do that face-to-face,” she says. “As they progress, their confidence seems to build. It’s about making a connection to someone seeking work and saying, ‘Don’t give up. There’s going to be someone who believes in you.’”

“WE’VE STILL GOT A LONG WAY TO GO, BUT IT’S SUPPORTED FROM THE TOP DOWN.”

SUSIE CORLETT

Board Director

Susie Corlett arrived, an eager young geologist, on a Tasmanian mine site in the early 1990s, only to be confronted by an angry mob of miners who refused to work with a woman underground. The burly men actively protested against her presence, insisting that a woman would “upset the protective spirits” in the mine. For Susie (pictured right), it was a confronting scene. Watching senior executives break up the rabble, she realised that life as a geologist was going to be tougher than she’d anticipated.

“I thought that equality had arrived already,” she tells The Weekly. “We were so far away 30 years ago. We’re still well off the pace today, as we are in many industries. But certainly, looking back, I didn’t realise how hard the road was going to be.”

Raised in a family of boys, Susie was not deterred from pursuing her dream career in mining and exploration by the industry’s reputation. But the protest at the Tasmanian mine was just the first in a long line of challenges.

“It was a time when naked women on posters in lunchrooms was common,” she says. “When I moved to one of the rougher mining towns, I opted not to live in the single men’s quarters because it didn’t seem like a safe environment. I caused a huge furore by renting my own home. And I wouldn’t wear dresses or skirts. I would be really conscious not to draw attention to being female ... I’ve put up with experiences that would be completely unacceptable in today’s workplace.”

When she was younger, she missed out on opportunities because the employer “couldn’t see a young, blonde woman doing the job”. Later, she was passed over for leadership roles and “told I was ineligible on account of being female. That’s not that long ago.”

There has also been what she calls “this overreach with unwanted physical contact ... I’ve had various powerful men leverage power to seek sexual favours on multiple occasions. I’ve left a dream role because the work environment wasn’t psychologically safe. In those days, there weren’t safe, effective reporting mechanisms.”

But Susie believes mining is a fantastic career for women, and as a senior leader she has been “in the trenches making change”. This means safety audits, safe reporting mechanisms, transparency and clear industry standards – not just within her own organisation, but across the entire industry. “This is a watershed moment,” Susie says.

For her, mining promised adventure and that’s exactly what she got. “It took me to all parts of the world and delivered on that promise to work on projects that make a difference.” And she wants other women to have those opportunities too.

“I have no doubt,” she says, “that we’re moving through a really painful reckoning in the short to medium term, but it will lead to transformational change ... I hope that, in 10 years’ time, being a female in mining is such a normal part of the landscape, it’s totally unremarkable.” AWW