Video transcript
He's in my bed?
Come on mate. Anthony, you gonna hop up buddy? No you want- Nan will be here soon.
Be good.
I dropped out of school early. Drank a lot, smoked a lot, but having kids was the thing that sort of made me grow up a bit and sort of found it a bit late and to um go back to school and all that sort of stuff and I was just looking for another way to sort of give me the direction and where i wanted to sort of be.
Your safety comes first. Forget about the production. Forget about the money.
I'm not a teacher. I'm from the industry. I know a lot of stuff, I do not know everything. I'm going to learn from you guys as well, you're going to teach me stuff. I think that's where the partnership comes in and I think that's important that, things you say I'm going to take on board all right, your experiences.
I think it was very exciting today because most of the participants we contacted turned up. They were on time. They were all smiles and happy.
I do my job because I enjoy it and I want you to enjoy your time here and I want you to enjoy your future because, not only do we need people like you out there in the industry, but someone's got to replace cranky old buggers like me.
The thing is we found over the last few years it's very difficult to get into civil construction by just walking onto the job site. So this is entry level. But in this we'll be talking about communication skills, workplace safety, planning, organizing your day and on the job site. And so, it's really base level, but it's a lot of information that they'll have to take on the next three weeks.
We come down to Adventure Park just to, one thing have a good day out, get down to scrub a bit. But it's sort of a test as well. But we find also it brings out the best in people, they join together. People who normally wouldn't do things together are doing things together and that's really important. So that's why we come down here.
The important thing is it's plenty of time. Think about what you're doing and enjoy the view, it's fantastic.
Yes, well done.
I just got too nervous because it was getting higher and I don't cope well with heights. I wanted to make a difference, to get into traineeships and to prove that women can do the job as well. My past is being a labourer. So i wanted to go into civil construction because eventually I want to be a developer.
I was searching for a job that was going to take notice of what I've got. Prior to this traineeship I had nothing like that. I just wanted to be a better person for my kids basically, just teach them a better life.
We're just heading up the Ipswich Motorway, we're going to get some boots and some high-vis shirts. So these guys can at least have the minimum standard of safety equipment to get onto a job site in a few weeks time. It's a good time to get to know each other too because we find that people chat on the bus, come out with some funny things and you start to hear the real people instead of being locked up in a classroom.
We discussed the plan, we put in place this package together that when these trainees came through they finished the traineeship and they'd go straight into full-time employment. They knew that I could relate to them. This was one of the main reasons why Main Roads picked me to do this job. Katrina has done amazingly well, she's an amazing person because she came into this training program, she's got a medical condition, nobody knew, we thought she was just a really nervous person.
I was diagnosed in 1994 with bipolar. I don't have depression side of it, I've got the high. So it's just like not sleeping, it's just that's how my bipolar is. I don't get um violent or anything like that.
I had a baby. She was born in 92 and that's what brought up the trauma of the bipolar. I'd snap or something like that and I didn't want to snap at my own daughter, because my daughter's too soft. She's like, she's like a little doll. If you yelled at her she'd cry, that's how she is, that's just, she's just too, she's too good. I made the decision that she go live with her dad. I said it's time for you to go now, she was six, and it was a good decision on my part. It hurt me, but I had to do it because I would have hurt her more because she wouldn't have grown up to be the way she is today.
Okay, so if you want to, you've got your water bottles, you've got your sunscreen, and then we can head out there to the batch plant, then we'll go through a few things and then we'll get to work. Okay, all right, let's go.
We've got injury from the noise. Okay, so therefore we've got our earplugs. We've got uh injury from fragments throwing out, that's why you'll notice where he puts the guard down. All right, he rolls down that hill you're in radius of that bucket mate, you're dead, all right. So keep away, all right. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have a few excavations over there we'll be cleaning our trenches and putting conduits together.
This is just work training, without pay, and we come here from six o'clock in the morning to about 4:30 in the afternoon for two weeks.
I love learning so I get quite bored easy. Just doing different things every day is just like um really good. I finished Grade 12, went to college, went to uni, then did a lot of community work and ended up where i am today.
I'm a single mum, I've got an 11 year old and a 10 year old. It's very hectic at times trying to juggle work and and the kids. like if I'm not organized everything just gets thrown out of whack. Buddy, come here mate.
I've got a son that has a medical condition, so um I struggle a bit with that, but um yeah I try to keep on top of everything.
I'm up at 4:30 every morning, um that's just to get myself ready, just make sure the house is clean, because when I come home I expect it to be exactly the same way. Yeah, my daughter hates it too. She wagged school today, she stayed home she reckoned she was sick but i reckon she really wasn't, yeah. I've got a teenage daughter also and she drives me nuts. She wants to fight and argue with me all the time and everything's debating this and debating that. I'm trying to get her to do something that's really hard, but she's a good kid, but yeah. Why didn't you go to school today? Because, honesty I said if I stay home I'll get um Wally's.
That's not, Leona, that's not a good excuse. I'll be ringing the school up tomorrow and I'll be telling the principal what you just said. What? I think with the juggling part when it comes to the kids and work, um like, I think they're at a really good age now where it allows me to go out and work. Getting into the construction side of it, yeah. I just thought, well, why not do it? You know, you know do something I've never done before something challenging.
I'm always looking for something that's going to give me a bit of opportunity. I was just looking for another, another, another way to sort of, you know, sort of give me the direction and where I wanted to sort of be.
Yeah the opportunities there, they're not not scared to sort of go and jump on an expensive piece of machinery, you know. They're willing, yeah, you ask and you show that you can, you want to do it they'll go and do it. Yeah, you can get uh ready to lock that truck up mate? Um just turn your lights off, and all that, you know how to do it.
Copy that, turn the truck off too? Yeah mate, take the video but, um, yeah get your board started up now.
Copy that.
It was um she just come home from work and called it off. Yeah, I reckon there's someone else involved, but you can't, you can never, you can't be 100 per cent sure.
When she decided that was it, um, it was like I didn't even know her, yeah. The person that I thought I knew, you know, being, being with her for 16 years, four kids.
Like, there's still, I still miss her and that, but I don't think um I don't think I know her now. Yeah, like that person that I knew was not the person that I know now.
I would talk to them and I would relate my experiences and I would tell them, well you're feeling this way, this is how you're feeling, and they're looking at me going how do you know? I said, because I've been through it. You know, I've been through all the relationships breaks up, I've been through deaths in the families, I know what it's like to grieve. But just let them know that, hey, there's someone else here too, that know, that been through what you've been through and can understand what you're going through.
I want to get my family up out of the sort of situation that we're in at the time. Just struggling, you know, living week by week, um, you know, just just getting by, you know.
For me it provides a feeling of security as well. You know what I mean? Because I know there's a future ahead of me.
I lived in the housing commission all my life and there's a lot of alcohol and drugs and violence that was surrounding me. We never had no nice things, you know, nothing like what I've got here and this is just. I used to walk in the friends' houses that look like this and I didn't want to leave their house because I didn't have that, you know. So what's going to happen today? First of all. I know what it's like to to have no money and to scratch and, you know, try and get food and stuff like that. So I did take on sometimes some of their own personal issues and I was told on numerous occasions, don't take on their problems but when you're that closely working with them, it's hard not to. So hopefully one day you can come and work for us, I know I get pushed to the limit. So what you're going to see today is not only for you to get exposure to asphalt, but also to get exposure more importantly to what's out there and how. The road, the asphalt thicknesses here total about 380 mil, so it's quite a substantial thickness. The ctb layer under it is 150 mil. I want to build houses for Indigenous and mental health people because they're the ones who always left behind. They're living in um hostels and things like that like. They're not settled, they're unhappy, they don't have a life like mine and, and, I want them to have something to to look forward to.
Well, I actually wanted to show the girls that, you know, doing a man's job isn't harder either. But, um, just with my son too I wanted to show him, you know, be a role model for him as well and say look mum's doing construction work and I always come home and I say, oh I built a bridge today, or yeah mum built the road and guess what I seen some trucks at work and he gets really excited and the girls ah mum is it hard? I'm like, yeah sometimes but you know like it comes with the work, but um I always got a story to tell when I come home from work.
Oh this is actually the first job that I've had that actually means something to me. I can actually see there's outcomes, you know, I see what comes out of it and that makes you feel good inside.
It's hard, it's sort of where, um, I've got all four of my kids now, and uh, yeah, first time I've had them by myself since uh separated, and yeah we just. I normally get up, get ready, me mum turns up and sort of sorts them out for me. Good morning, how are you? You know there is a strong bond there and he loves his kids, he'd do anything for them, you know. But he's finding it hard, like you know all fathers do, when they, you know, separated and that and it's very hard, and, uh. Coming here looking after the kids every morning, you know, it's um. I know that I wanted to see him achieve something, this is why I'm doing it. You know what you're doing for the day? What do you got to do?
Clean up? Yep.
Please don't make any promises that you can't keep, so if you promise somebody that you'll. They've all had their own little battles to fight. Jared has been through the mill, as well, you know he's had his personal problems, but he's came through it. We will also be surveying. In the year 2005, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was 25 at the time. They found a cancer cell and said that I had to do six months chemo, and yeah. That upset my partner more than me and I said we should break it off, because I didn't want to burden her. I didn't think she'd want to be around, you know, because I had cancer so I said, you know, you can leave if you like, but she stuck around and she wanted me to do the treatment. So, you know, I thought yeah she believes in me and you know she wants me alive so I'm gonna do this. So I went and done it, and yeah for my kids as well.
I had to stay positive, you know, I couldn't sit there and say, oh bugger it all, you know, you know, because everyone around me was falling down around me, they were feeling sorry for me and I sat down and said, you know, l. You know I understood where that coming from, you know, they're going to feel sympathetic like anyone would. But I just didn't want people to make a fuss over me basically, I just wanted things to carry on as normal. The pre-start, back to front, right, then you sign in. Now that we're getting towards the end of the year just a matter of waiting and seeing what comes our way and I sit there and get excited about, you know, where I'm going. But some days you just get out of bed, and you just like you find it hard, because of course of my home life, what's going on at home.
Got me two boys at home and they're just being kids and getting into trouble and whatnot. Yeah it's just what life throws at you and different people, different situations, just got to bloody deal with what it throws at you. Yeah, um, well I I never thought that I'd have to, I never really considered it before, I thought I was safe, safe within a relationship, um yeah, but life life changes and takes different different directions and just got to deal with what comes your way.
I first started off building bridges, so I was drilling bolts and stuff into it and putting the straps on it, so it's just amazing to see what work goes into building a bridge. Like I drive past and I go I built that bridge but, yeah, no it's good, it's really good. It's a man's world civil construction, but I've done it and I, and I, and I'm doing civil construction now, because I believe that I can do it. My life's changed because of the job I've, I really love it, and I'm getting more and more confident within myself because I can do the job.
Where's that at?
A very big change has happened and I'm very grateful that my daughter wants to come home and live with me again. She hasn't lived with me since she was like six.
I was very confused at the start though. I didn't know what the illness was and I didn't know when I was going to see you. That was your second birthday. I'm very proud of my mother and it's great that she's developing so fast. Everything's a lot better than what it was um, life is more positive for Kayla and when Kayla feels positive about things I feel positive. You know, um you need your mum sometimes and, yeah. I call him my angel.
One of the things that that we've looked at and we've asked ourselves is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Have we made these people better? And we have, you know. Are they more employable? Yes they are. There were 14 trainees who started the program and I'm happy to say that 13 have completed. Well this happens to be my first graduation. Didn't graduate high school. Yeah, it's a very happy moment for me. What keeps me going is is waking up every day knowing that I'm well and I'm getting more and more confident within myself.
Like you know the kid's father I don't really get along with him well but every time he drives up, drives over the bridge to drop the kids off he knows I built it, so yeah. So, you know, we've had our downs, we've had our ups, but I'm just thankful that we've all had the opportunity to do the traineeship.
When this program was designed, this traineeship, to help blokes long-term unemployed. It's been a wonderful journey, it hasn't been easy and it's to your credit that you stuck at it and thank you for that and congratulations.
