As the debate rages about the delay in getting bushfire donations to where they’re needed, a bunch of Aussie tradies are quietly stepping up to the plate.    By Rachel Smith

When carpenter Rob Johnstone pulled into the Victorian town of Buchan soon after the bushfires had blazed through, he remembers thinking it looked like a nuclear blast had gone off. “Imagine God had a gigantic bucket of liquid fire and upturned it over the landscape,” he says. “The mountains went up, trees were scorched, houses were levelled, fences were burned to a crisp, animals were lying everywhere dead on the ground. It was absolutely horrendous.”

Johnstone, who’s ex-military, used his skills to jump into relief efforts early. He kicked off East Gippsland Community Support, a Facebook fundraiser that’s amassed $25,000. Weekdays, he’s on the tools; his weekends are spent mobilizing hundreds of tradies to do everything from building kilometres of fencing to ferrying supplies to towns in need. “I’ve heard so many stories,” he says. “I’ve had the hardest men I’ve ever met break down in front of me. I met a guy who was returning bottled water because he felt other people needed it more; he’d been pouring it into troughs for his livestock. That guy stayed to defend and the fire took everything he had—and it threw him 20 feet in the air and burned the clothes off his back. They’re the kinds of people I want to help.”

Joining forces

Johnstone works closely with Tradies for Fire Affected Communities, a Facebook movement started by Melbourne-based carpenter Piers Smart. “I thought it was a great initiative and they’ve been an asset to us,” he says.

At first, Smart admits his Facebook group was just “a pub idea that grew legs. I wanted to help with the bushfire recovery but I knew I’d just be a drop in the ocean,” he says, “so I put out a call on Facebook to see if anyone else wanted to join me—I expected to get just 20 or 30 tradies!” That group exploded. It has 14,000+ members, while the registration website, tffac.com.au, has 6000 registered tradies on its list. The challenge, says Smart, is trying to get help to where it’s needed and to manage the legal side of things, to protect trades and homeowners.

“I’ve personally never done anything like this and I’m learning on the fly— luckily I have a team working with me that have gone above and beyond to help bring this whole thing to life,” he says, adding that the current website is soon to be replaced by a more sophisticated one that’ll be a bit like ‘AirTasker for fire relief’, where you can ask for help, or register to help out. Smart stresses that his group and the tradies registering aren’t interested in taking work away from local trades in fire-affected regions. “We hope our group will be a longterm service that could be rolled out in any disaster,” he explains, “and we see ourselves as free support to local trades, to help get those affected back up and running a lot quicker.”

Getting involved

Some tradies who’ve been in the epicentre themselves are returning to help too. Shane Williams, who has 20 years’ construction experience, is one of them—he outran the New Year’s Eve fires in Merimbula in order to get home to Canberra. “We were on our way home but when we arrived in Cooma that afternoon, it was like midnight,” he remembers. “It was pitch black, there was sideways lightning bolts, it was raining ash. I hoped if we got to the Monaro Highway we’d be okay but we were doing 20kms an hour, wipers on, no visibility and fires building on both sides of the road.”

Williams, who had his partner Rachel in the passenger seat and his three kids in the back, tried to stay calm but says at the time, he thought it was game over. “It’s probably the most scared I’ve ever been,” he admits.

The family made it home, but the experience affected Williams deeply. He joined Bushfires Emergency Accommodation to offer up his spare room, and now splits his time between work and helping with the recovery effort. “I’ve set up water stations for evacuees, I’ve helped a woman near Cobargo move house; that area is like a bomb site,” he says. “I’ve been in Bredbo rebuilding fences and I’m going to Cobargo to do the same. My phone pings constantly with messages from people who need help.” Government relief and donation money isn’t getting to those in need fast enough, he adds. “I’ve seen a family with a nine-month old baby living in a tent who think they’ll be in it for the next six months,” he says. “And I’ve talked to people waiting on insurance from last year. That’s not okay.”

The power of the people

All three tradies we talked to agree the grassroots tradie movement is yet another example of our never-say-die Aussie spirit. “We’re not affiliated with anyone and we’re not bound by red tape, so we’re able to act fast and get help to where it’s needed,” says Johnstone, who’s hoping for more donated supplies from construction companies.

Smart’s priority is letting people know they can ask for help and that teams of tradies are ready to hit the ground running. “A lot of affected people aren’t online-savvy so our next challenge is to let them know we’re there, and how they can engage with us,” he says. Williams just hopes other Aussies heed the call to head to fire-affected regions. “So many people won’t take handouts, but they’ve been through a lot and they need to talk,” he says. “Visit. Have a coffee. Give them a hug and let them know there are lots of Aussies looking out for them.”  

Find out more online at https://tradiesforfireaffectedcommunities.com/

Despite growing up with two parents who rallied, motorsport wasn’t the first love for our first-ever female Australian Rally Champion.    By Liz Swanton

In a home crammed with reminders of what her mum and dad did for work and ‘play’, an infant Molly Taylor played with toy horses, not dolls—or cars. That is surprising, given Molly is the daughter of four-time Australian rally champion co-driver Coral Taylor, who calls the corners for Canberra’s Neal Bates and the Toyota Australia rally team. Father Mark was a regular competitor at state and national level and also owned a rally school for a while. Hold that thought … Both parents remember Molly’s passion as a toddler. Neither of them have any interest or background in single horsepower, but it was there from the beginning in their daughter.

“Mum tells the story of us going to the Bega Rally one year as a family, when I was very little,” Molly laughs. “We stayed with Neal Bates’ parents- in- law and they lived on a farm. We must have been talking about it on the way because mum said I immediately asked if there would be horses. Jane’s dad Richard put me on a pony and apparently I refused to watch the rally—I just wanted to ride the pony all weekend, and that is pretty much what I did!”

Horsepower

From there it was weekly riding lessons. Eventually her parents succumbed to the begging and she got her first horse at 10. She honed her skills and the years went by. More horses, more training, more serious—she even went to a school where it was BYO-horse and riding on the curriculum. By now she was competing at national level and some form of equestrian future looked certain—until Molly turned 16 and was learning to drive. Remember how her dad owned the rally school? She was hooked. “I still had a horse, and I still loved competing but mum drove me to a show one weekend and I didn’t do very well. While we were driving home, she said I had chosen two very time consuming interests and, if I was serious, I would have to give one up.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, Molly sold her horse to buy a car and started her motorsport career. There were club level events, then state rounds and eventually the national series. In 2006 she won her class in the state series; in 2007 and 2008, she repeated the achievement at national level.

World champion

What to do next? With dual citizenship in Australia and the UK, the answer was obvious. Molly headed for England in 2009 to tackle the British Rally Championship—that year she became the British Ladies Rally Champion, the first driver from outside the UK to take the title, and against some very stiff competition. She backed it up the following year before taking part in an international shoot-out against 16 young rally drivers from across the world—and won one of six scholarships to compete at junior level (FIA Academy) in six events of the 2011 World Rally Championship.

“It was the most amazing opportunity but a massive learning curve and a real case of jumping in at the deep end,” Molly says. “They were the toughest events to do, and obviously even stronger competition and more pressure when they’re international events. Generally that was the theme of all my years overseas but stepping up to WRC was another level. “Through all of those years, I had to grow up fast and learn how to be independent. Plus I had to find sponsors, put together a program and compete at the same time as being on the other side of the world from my family and normal comfort zone.” She hustled as hard as she could, putting time, money and effort into the European Rally Championship (she was the ERC Ladies Rally Champion in 2013) as well as the WRC. In the end— like so many talented young Australian drivers trying to compete overseas—the inability to find large sums of money put a halt to her international dreams. Molly came back to Australia in 2015.

Like a legend

The national series called again, as did the opportunity—finally—to become a professional factory driver: Subaru Australia offered her the chance to spearhead the company’s return to the local rally scene. A year later, and the 2016 title was hers—the youngest driver (at the time) to take the crown and the first female. “So very special. A long-held dream and something that I thought was further away in my career, so it taught me a lot about what is possible when you get all the right ingredients together. I will be forever grateful to Subaru, to the Les Walkden Rally Team, and to my then co-driver Bill Hayes, and it was simply amazing to share that with them.”

She went into the year on a high, having been presented with one of the most prestigious awards in Australian motorsport—the Peter Brock Medal. It’s awarded to the driver who has demonstrated similar characteristics to the legendary driver, including outstanding ability, a fair and sportsman-like attitude and a willingness and capacity to promote the sport in the wider community. “What an honour. Just incredible. It’s hard to see myself as someone with their name on an accolade like that. I was overwhelmed to be selected. I think I read the letter 10 times before I believed it wasn’t a mistake! “People ask why do you love motor sport, why do you sacrifice everything else? For people who haven’t experienced the sport in any way, it’s difficult to explain without them thinking you’re completely crazy, which they usually do anyway! That’s something Peter was good at, to translate that passion and energy he had for the sport and inspire so many people with it.”

Racing dreams

Molly has managed to follow in those very large footsteps, and inspire many others in the process—especially young women—but the last two years have been challenging. She describes the 2018 season as a shocker, and finished last year in third, on a points countback. Then, just before Christmas, Subaru announced its withdrawal from the sport in Australia—and Molly began looking for the next opportunity.

“I still have a contract with Subaru Australia so I work with them on car launches, customer ride days and other events, so there is a lot going on with the brand but no rally team. That is sad, but I can’t just sit and feel sad. My plan is to do some driving this year, racing and rallying, so I’m working on a budget and talking to people to see what I can put together, for here and overseas if I can make it happen.”

Given what she has achieved so far, you wouldn’t want to bet against her making those dreams come true.

A new Bond University study involving almost 500 participants has revealed work pressures were the main source of stress for construction project managers and affected their ability to perform their jobs. In contrast, workers across business at large said non-work issues were the greatest contributors to stress.

Report author Professor Alan Patching is calling for systemic change in the Australian construction industry to protect workers’ mental health. The consequences of failing to act included suicide, he said. Professor Patching, who was project director for construction of the Sydney Olympic Stadium, said a cut-throat approach to tendering and wafer-thin profit margins were driving the stress epidemic.

“The current most commonly used contracting system effectively often requires tenderers to bid with low or no margin prices and/or to offer reduced construction time in order to win work,” Professor Patching said. “That, in turn, requires appointing more experienced and usually already over-committed construction project managers to manage the project in a way that drives some level of profit from it”. Professor Patching said construction industry culture was a key stumbling block to taking action. Research from 2009 showed absenteeism due to stress-related illness increased dramatically in every area of business except construction, despite concerning suicide rates among construction workers over the period of the study.

“It was not that construction people were not experiencing stress-related illness, they simply did not report it for fear of appearing weak in an industry reputed for its tough image,” Professor Patching said. “My research confirmed that this attitude is still very much alive and kicking. It needs to be eradicated.”