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In light of the Adelaide Cup public holiday on March 14, next week’s Monitor will be published and distributed on Thursday, March 17.
Volume 13, Wednesday, March 9, 2016
70% vote for new roster at OD WRITTEN BY PATRICK GLOVER
T
he introduction of a week on, week off roster at BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine site will move into the consultation stage after receiving 70 per cent of employee votes in a recent poll.
The anonymous phone poll saw 85 per cent of affected employees casting a vote before it closed last week. BHP Billiton Olympic Dam’s Chad Menzies said the company would now commence a formal consultation process and have one-on-one communications with those employees who may be affected by the proposed roster change.
Mr Menzies said BHP Billiton would continue to keep local community representatives informed as its investigations progressed. “We continue to work with local community representatives to discuss potential impacts and identify opportunities to ensure Roxby Downs remains a location of choice,” he added.
Petition targets mobile coverage Roxby Downs woman Melissa Emery at Black Stump Cafe and Takeaways, where a petition for more funding towards mobile phone ‘blackspots’ had already attracted dozens of signatures after being provided to the business last week. The petition is available at a number of local businesses until April 30. PHOTO: Ryneisha Bollard
WRITTEN BY RYNEISHA BOLLARD
R
oxby Downs woman Melissa Emery is calling on locals to support a national campaign for increased funding to reduce mobile ‘blackspots’.
The petition has been available from a number of local businesses since last week and has already attracted dozens of signatures. Mrs Emery’s friend – Katrina Marsh, of Kojonup, Western Australia – started the petition after her fiance died during a motorcycle accident. The accident occurred in a mobile blackspot, meaning emergency assistance was delayed for more than
20 minutes because phoning Triple Zero was impossible. “I had previously taken it for granted that ‘000’ was available throughout Australia with or without mobile coverage,” Ms Marsh said in a statement. “(However) if you are faced with a life-threatening emergency and are in a mobile phone blackspot area, you will not be able to obtain emergency assistance. “This could be the difference between life and death.” Mrs Emery said she was supporting the campaign because she was concerned about how these blackspots could affect her friends and family after hearing about Ms Marsh’s experience. “I was shocked, really, because my knowledge was that even if you’re out of range you could still call Tri-
ple Zero, and that’s not the case,” she said. “If there’s no service then there’s no service – nothing is going to work.” The Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Programme committed $100 million in the first round towards 499 new or upgraded mobile base stations across Australia by June 2016. It announced the locations to benefit from this round in June last year and is currently investigating sites for its second round of the program, to which the Government is contributing $60 million. Ms Marsh’s petition calls on the House of Representatives to approve further funding to address mobile phone blackspots and set a deadline by which all identified areas will receive coverage.
Mrs Emery encouraged all Roxby Downs residents to add their signatures towards the cause. “This actually affects everyone here because we’re all from somewhere else, and everyone’s towns and everyone’s cities have blackspots,” she said. “We just wanted to get it out there and give everyone the opportunity to have their name down and stand up for their communities.” Mrs Emery said locals driving between Roxby Downs and Adelaide were among those at risk of being disadvantaged by mobile blackspots in an emergency. “They would have to get to the next town or wait for someone to come along before they could get help,” she said. The petition has been provided to the Roxby Downs Police Station
and local businesses including Dunes Cafe, the Roxby Downs Visitor Information Centre, Roxby Traders Mitre 10, Smokemart, Black Stump Cafe and Takeaways, Woolworths, Roxby Bakery and The Monitor. Mrs Emery has also sent it to the Marree and William Creek hotels, Coober Pedy Police Station and The Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta. She will need to collect signatures by April 30 so that they can be sent to the Parliament of Australia via the Standing Committee on Petitions. For more information about the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spots Programme, visit: https:// www.communications.gov.au/whatwe-do/phone/mobile-ser vicesand-coverage/mobile-blackspot-programme