Miners frustrated at lack of services, Newmont working on addressing issues
Miners stuck out at the Tanami gold mine have voiced their frustrations at being locked up in their rooms in poor conditions
Northern Territory
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MINERS stuck out at the Tanami gold mine have voiced their frustrations at being locked up in their rooms in poor conditions.
Newmont Australia regional senior vice president Alex Bates has admitted they failed on Tuesday to supply the 700 miners with adequate meals.
“We absolutely did not meet our obligations to our team members yesterday, and I offer my wholehearted apologies,” Mr Bates said.
Speaking on ABC Radio he said the supply issue arose from the fact that the catering and cleaning staff were all identified as close contacts of the initial case.
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“One of the critical issues was that all of the catering and cleaning staff were identified as very close contacts by the Department of Health,” Mr Bates said.
“So we had to mobilise a team … and they’re not familiar with the site. So yesterday was not our finest day. We absolutely were late in delivering food.”
The mine has been broken down into zones based on risk of infection and work is underway to organise a schedule to allow people access to the outdoors.
Some miners, and family and friends of miners have voiced their frustrations at the conditions they are in.
Dale Walker, who is not a miner, but friends with a handful of miners stuck out at the site posted on social media to say many had no access to the outdoors or even sunlight.
“They are not allowed to leave their room. No fresh air, no exercise, no conversation with anyone, no smoking, no natural light (most windows are painted up for night shift workers),” he wrote online.
“They have space for a single bed and a TV the size of a laptop screen. They are lucky to sometimes get one channel of free to air TV.”
Mr Bates said he understood the frustrations the miners were feeling and work was underway to ensure their quarantine was a comfortable as it could be.
Kettles, televisions and other items are being supplied to miners this week.
Mr Bates said the miner catching the virus from the hotel was out of Newmont’s control but the organisation would look at its protocols to ensure an outbreak could be mitigated.
He said testing swabs of the 700 miners in quarantine were being sent to Darwin to be processed.
“What we have been doing is taking swabs and sending them to the facilities in Darwin, we’ve been doing that throughout the pandemic,” he said.
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