Committed to Increasing Aboriginal Employment

We actively support the State Government’s Aboriginal participation policy through several initiatives that have provided significant opportunities for Aboriginal employment within our projects and work activities.

The Strategic Business Case for Aboriginal Employment Initiatives was developed in consultation with key representatives from Aboriginal communities across the state, government agencies and contractors to identify what initiatives we can implement to improve the livelihood of Aboriginal people.

Championed and led by the Aboriginal Employment Initiatives Taskforce these initiatives include:

• Creation of a Senior Advisor Aboriginal Engagement role dedicated to exploring opportunities and engagement with Aboriginal businesses. This role is currently under recruitment.
• Development of a Program Implementation Plan framework based on the prioritised list of strategies in the business case.
• Incorporation of contract clauses for mandatory requirements for Aboriginal participation, including dedicated Aboriginal trainees and employment targets in our Road Network maintenance contracts; and stretch targets for employment of Aboriginal people and businesses, and incentive payments for major works.
• Formation of an Aboriginal advisory group comprising of external Aboriginal business leaders.
• Piloting the mandatory requirement for Aboriginal Participation Plans with weighted criteria and price preferences for other Capital Works tenders as well as the Goods and Services tenders. 

All contracts in the Metropolitan Region require a minimum of 10 per cent of the workforce to comprise of Aboriginal people. In addition, a target of 2 per cent of engaged businesses are to be an Aboriginal business registered on the Aboriginal Business or Supply Nation directories.

Regionally, we are not only reaching our targets, but exceeding them. In the Mid West-Gascoyne Region and Wheatbelt Region, currently 37 per cent and 23 per cent of the workforce respectively, comprise of Aboriginal people.

Other major achievements within our projects include 86 per cent Aboriginal employment on site in the first month of construction of the Broome Cape Leveque project, of which 95 per cent were local. For the Wyndham Spur and Maggies Jump Up sections upgrades, more than 45 per cent of total labour hours were undertaken by Aboriginal people. For the Bow River Bridge, 31 per cent of total labour hours were conducted by Aboriginal people.

This is a new era for Main Roads. It is estimated that 170 Aboriginal employment opportunities have been created as a result of our initiatives. These enable a focussed approach to increasing employment of Aboriginal people and businesses across our organisation and ultimately, within the road and bridge construction and maintenance industry.