Ngaire Baker has worked in mining for more than 40 years in coal, iron ore, and minerals across Western Australia, Russia, China, South America and in NSW. It was never a career she had planned, but looking back she can’t imagine having done anything else.
Turn back the clock to the 1980s and Ngaire was on her way to be a foreign correspondent in the UK. She stayed in WA for a week and that’s when she met Rod, a mining engineer.
“We were paired up at the tennis club and the rest as they say is history! I didn’t make it to London that time, Rod was on his way to a new role in Kalgoorlie and suggested I visit for the weekend. I did and had such a great time that we ended up buying a house for $39,000.
“I organised a job as a journalist at the Kalgoorlie Miner and on weekends I would do the sport report on ABC Radio. We were married 18 months later.
“I remember I was in the pub one night and I heard this voice calling out my name and there are never two Ngaire’s in a pub,” she laughed.
“It was a guy I went to school with in Queensland. He was now a mining engineer and managed an explosives plant in Kalgoorlie and said I should come work for him.
“I thought it was ridiculous, I was a journalist! But he kept pushing, he said I would earn a lot, and you got to blow things up. After a brief discussion with Rod who suggested I give it a go I did and I learnt everything from the bottom up at that business.”
But it wasn’t long before the life of a miner’s wife kicked in and Rod was transferred to another mine. Ngaire’s second job in mining was stakeholder engagement and working with the community.
Ngaire worked in various roles from being a surveyor’s assistant to being in a lab, but it was community relations where she found her home.
“Everywhere I went there was always someone who wanted something written or organised, I just knew how to make those things happen.
“I remember we had a category four cyclone where I was working in the late 1990s, I was seven months pregnant at the time. We had people wanting information left, right and centre and I was the only one who could do it all. My boss sent in a helicopter and asked me to go up and take photos, so I did!”
Ngaire ended up in the Hunter Valley 19 years ago in her first job in the coal industry.
“Stepping into the coal space was extremely different and daunting and it took a while to get used to it!
“I started as a contractor when I came here with my son Martin, he was 10 years old at the time. The more I got involved and got to know the community the more I loved it,” Ngaire said.
Ngaire worked at MACH Energy Mount Pleasant Operations for seven years.
“That role and the people at the time were extremely special to me. No one expected Mount Pleasant to start but we had such a fantastic team under Richard Bailey a Hunter Valley mining stalwart.
“I still feel a connection there and I daresay I always will, but eventually it was time to move on.”
Ngaire’s next job was a huge opportunity at DEVELOP’s Woodlawn operation in the Southern Tablelands of NSW. The job turned out to be a full circle move for Ngaire. DEVELOP’s head office was based in WA and as a result there were lots of employees from WA working at the new site.
“The move to a copper-zinc operation wasn’t about leaving the coal industry, it was about taking the next step in my career.
“The attraction of Woodlawn was the opportunity to take everything I’d learnt about communities, stakeholders, government and social licence in coal and apply it to a very different operation.
“There was also a professional challenge.
“Woodlawn was moving through redevelopment and ramp-up rather than being an established operation. That meant helping build relationships, systems and community confidence as the mine transitioned into production.”
The Woodlawn operation is one of only three polymetallic mines in the country, extracting lead, zinc, copper, silver and gold underground.
Approximately five hundred metres below the surface is a maze of underground roadways where tonnes of raw rock is extracted each year. Once the material is extracted, it’s trucked to the surface where it begins the process of becoming a concentrate.
The rock is crushed down to about 7mm by a jaw crusher, then undergoes several other size-reduction processes including rotating mills that can go through up to two tonnes of steel per day crushing the raw material.
Once the materials are crushed down to a fine powder, they are separated and floated, with each metal going through its own process to become a concentrate using floatation or chemicals, depending on the metal.
The concentrate is thickened, thickened again, poured, the water and air blown out, it’s tamped down and then it goes into a pile, into a container and off to Port Kembla with some distribution also through Port Botany.
It’s such a unique process, and certainly very different to coal extraction and the process of crushing, washing and shipping. Woodlawn has a relatively young workforce and a long life ahead of it pending further approvals down the track.
“DEVELOP is such an exciting company to be part of led by Bill Beament. It’s a completely different landscape for me, but working with WA based miners and professionals is where I’m comfortable so it really feels like I’ve come full circle.
“I see such a strong future for mining. Coal still has a future; I know all the reasons why people want it to stop but it can’t right now and maybe not for 20 years yet – even though I’m no scientist.
“The future for metalliferous, and for the minerals we’re mining here, is strong because we need those minerals in things we use every day.
“A lot of my time is also spent working with careers advisors and the NSW Minerals Council to educate and encourage students to look into mining and come into the industry.
“We’re engaging with universities and schools in the area to let them know there is a mine half an hour to one hour from where they live, you can come here and work, earn a great wage and go home every night.
People often ask Ngaire about retirement, with comments like, haven’t you seen and done it all, why do you keep working such long hours.
“Yes, I lived in some of the most remote and craziest towns in the world, I have experiences no one else will ever have but at the end of the day why would I retire when I love what I do? If you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life and that’s why I’m in mining.”
