Sacked Clive Palmer workers hand out food, hope

Sacked nickel refinery workers are running a volunteer project to collect and hand out food parcels to colleagues in dire straits.

11/04/2016: Sacked QNI (Queesland Nickel) worker Joe Collocot with wife Carol at their home in Townsville. Joe and Carol offer food parcels to other needy former workers. Cameron Laird/The Australian

One nickel refinery worker sacked by Clive Palmer was living on two-minute noodles. Another couldn’t afford to put fuel in her car and was walking 16km every day to visit relatives.

Now, their colleagues have banded together to help, with more than 20 volunteers collecting money and supplies from workers, local businesses and even pensioners. They distribute food, petrol vouchers, detergent and other essentials from the garages of two Townsville homes to some of the almost 800 staff made redundant at north Queensland’s Yabulu refinery.

The project was engineered by Angie Bramwell, the wife of retrenched Queensland Nickel worker Shaun Bramwell. “I want this to be the Queensland Nickel model; this is something positive that he can’t take away from us,” Ms Bramwell said.

“When I was ringing people to check on them, some were telling me they were surviving on two-minute noodles. Now, two weeks later, we’re feeding 85 people each week, with no money, just donations.”

Ex-refinery workers Joe Collocott and Colin Martin and their wives took up the cause.

Carol Collocott recalls the night Ms Bramwell rang at 7.45pm, asking her to check on an ex-refinery worker next day. “She said she was in dire straits and asked if we could take her shopping tomorrow and get her some food,” she said. “We went that night.”

Mr Martin dropped in on “one big fella” who was living on two-minute noodles. “I went to do the grocery shopping for him and he was gobsmacked,” he said. “He was crying, that started everybody crying.”

Ms Bramwell said she had warned the volunteers it might be emotional. “You’re going to see grown men cry, and you might cry too,” she said.

But helping friends and old colleagues has given the ex-workers a purpose as they seek jobs in Townsville’s depressed market. “If we can save one marriage, one life, we’re doing well,” said Ms Collocott.

While some rely on food parcels since the collapse of Queensland Nickel in January, their former boss has enjoyed meals at swanky restaurants. Last month, Mr Palmer was pictured lunching at Sanctuary Cove’s fine-dining Italian restaurant Ioesco with businessman Domenic Martino.

A fortnight later, he dined at Brisbane’s high-end Public restaurant with lobbyist and former state politician Jim Elder and businessman Warwick Powell, both of whom were forced from the ALP after allegations of electoral fraud in 2000.

After his meal, Mr Palmer was seen fumbling with $100 notes to pay for parking.