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Monday, May 19, 2008

Young Aussies are making megabucks in the nation's most dangerous mines. Peter McAllister discovers it's ore or nothing.

Dozer driver Lance Gleeson takes a long pull on a beer fished from dirt-stained esky ice. It's Corona, trucked in from nearby Karratha, but the 25-year-old can afford it. "I bought my first house at 19," he says, swatting a fly from his dripping brow in the 45 degree heat. "I've got four now. I’ll probably buy another five before I retire."
"One every 18 months," I mutter. "Not bad.
Lance shrugs. "It got easier once I did the course to move from driving to training – my salary jumped from $150,000 to $450,000 a year."
"How long was the course?" I stammer.
He chuckles then grins. "About a week."
Every day in Western Australia's Pilbara region, a couple of thousand burly blokes and a few chicks are washing red money – iron ore oxide – off themselves in borewater shower blocks in mining camp huts. It's a millionaires' row of cheery, grimy bastards with a big-money lifestyle most working stiffs can only dream about.
Blokes don’t blink at dropping $3000 on a week-long binge in Perth. Babes have paid off their first $500,000 mortgage and are working on their second. Middle-aged wild boys plonk Harleys in the garage with a Cherokee for the wife, plus a yacht and a jetski or two for weekend fun.