Lavish food and luxury? FIFO workers just want a good night's sleep
At least that's the findings of what is arguably the most expansive study of FIFO work in the country, or as its lead author, Monash University's Jack Tooley, describes it, 'like a 'state of the nation' for FIFO camps'.
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Perth Now
9 hours ago
- Perth Now
Popular burger chain's next Perth location revealed
Hip-hop inspired burger chain Milky Lane has announced Willeton's Southlands precinct will be the home of its next west coast venue, confident the State's appetite for oversized snacks and decadent desserts is far from satisfied. Set to be unveiled on August 22, it will mark the brand's fifth active WA location since it launched nationally in 2016. Entering the State via Elizabeth Quay in 2022, the chain has since expanded to Curtin University, Currambine and Bunbury. 'Western Australia has embraced us in a way that's truly unmatched,' Milky Lane co-founder Christian Avant said. 'There's a genuine appetite here for what we do, weird big flavours, bold vibes, and unforgettable experiences. Southlands felt like the perfect next move. It's a growing precinct, and we see real potential to build something that serves the local community while keeping the party going.' Milky Lane burgers match those with large appetites. Credit: Milky Lane Milky Lane's only local regret has been its February 2025 venture up the coast into Karratha, with the brand and Pilbara-based Stardeck Group recently announcing their regional franchise agreement would be terminated later this month. Ray Stauss, WA Area Developer for Milky Lane, said its next local venture would not just benefit the community through the recruitment of dozens of workers, but by way of its cultural footprint. Milky Lane is known for its adventurous menu. Credit: Milky Lane 'The choice of Southlands Willetton is no accident. As one of Perth's rapidly evolving lifestyle hubs, Southlands brings together diverse demographics, families, students, and nightlife lovers alike, making it a prime destination for Milky Lane's signature blend of food, music, and culture,' Mr Strauss said. 'Guests can expect iconic street-art murals, tailored to the local scene, live DJ sets spinning hip-hop and R&B tracks into the night, insane burgers and next-level desserts, and signature cocktails made to impress and share. With Willeton locals to be treated to signature favourites, Milky Lane has promised a few exclusive menu items will also be unveiled.
News.com.au
a day ago
- News.com.au
Drill to Kill: How Ballard plans to grow its already bountiful Mt Ida gold project
WA's gold fields have plenty more large scale discoveries to be made With Ballard Mining's advanced 930,000oz Baldock deposit and 26km of largely unexplored greenstone, its Mt Ida project has potential to upsize 130,000m of drilling planned after $30m IPO and spinoff from lithium junior Delta Lithium Is the Western Australia's gold scene too drilled out for world class discoveries, or is that fear just a crisis of imagination? Recent developments in WA's gold sector show discoveries can deliver over and over again. De Grey Mining's 11.2Moz Hemi gold discovery near Port Hedland put the cat among the pigeons. And since that 2020 find, which turned the minnow into a $6bn takeover prey for Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST), well-trodden turf across the state has delivered revelations. Spectrum Metals, Musgrave Minerals and Spartan Resources have all posted high-grade gold discoveries in the Mid West that sit within the portfolio of Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS). Spartan's 2.3Moz Never Never and Pepper deposits were located just 1km from its processing plant in the mature Dalgaranga gold field. Former De Grey chair Simon Lill, now the chair of WA gold explorers Ballard Mining (ASX:BM1) and Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI), says the geos at De Grey were confident another orebody of the scale of Hemi is lurking somewhere in the WA outback. "It's amazing that most of Australia's still under cover, really. And as they're getting better at techniques of looking beneath the cover they're starting to find more materials," he said at the Diggers and Dealers mining forum in Kalgoorlie this month. Other mines which once had short lives have been shown to go on, seemingly, forever – think Northern Star's Super Pit, Jundee and Carosue Dam, Ramelius' Checkers, Catalyst Metals' (ASX:CYL) Plutonic and Westgold Resources ' (ASX:WGX) Big Bell. Those success stories open a tantalising window into a possible future for the ASX's newest WA gold explorer Ballard and its 1.1Moz Mt Ida gold project. Mt Ida includes 930,000oz at 4.1g/t alone at the Baldock deposit, a potential open pit that forms the basis of a future mining hub, drilled before the company's spin-off from Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI). "We've got 1Moz here already without really trying, and it's still just scratching the surface, so who knows how big that can become," Lill said. "Some of the discoveries from the '80s that Ed Eshuys was involved with, they're still mining. "At the time, they got up and operating on a seven-year mine life. They're still operating." The potential Tasked with bringing that vision to life is managing director Paul Brennan, a veteran of WA's Goldfields. He was the general manager of Carosue Dam for Saracen Mineral Holdings when the mine poured its millionth ounce of gold. It's still going strong eight years on. "One of my favourite sayings is the best spot to find a new mine is at an existing mine," Brennan said. "When I was there, we went through this organic shift from open pit mining to underground mining. "And then once we actually got underground and established some underground diamond drill positions, we were able to drill from a position that was favourable to the resource rather than drilling Hail Mary's from surface, which are very expensive. "Those orebodies just continue to grow. "Karari and (Whirling) Dervish still underpin Carosue Dam's production." Ballard is uniquely placed to make those additional discoveries early. Armed with $30m in fresh capital from its July IPO, the high-powered junior is already trading well above the offer price at 45c and is using that cash to fund two distinct drill drives. Newly listed and with four rigs already on the ground, around 100km west of the Goldfields town of Leonora, one is an 80,000m program to infill and expand Baldock and the other a 50,000m program to make new discoveries across 26km of largely untested greenstone hosted shear zones. "Baldock, we've only really drilled it down to 350 metres, so there's certainly opportunity to extend that at depth," Brennan said. "But we want to hunt it along strike first just to find the edges. " And then secondly, the exploration drilling – this is probably a little bit different from Saracen in that there's a genuine underexplored nature at Mount Ida, 26 kilometres of prospective greenstone with an average drill hole depth of 40 metres. "Something like only 670 holes have been drilled at Mount Ida since Baldock was discovered in 2001." Majors on board The nature of Ballard's journey to the ASX means it has a uniquely powerful register for a new explorer. Delta itself controls around 46% of the stock, with legacy DLI investors Hancock Prospecting and Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) rounding out the top 3. Japanese trading house Idemitsu is there as well, along with well known Aussie funds Nero Resources Fund, Precision Funds Management and Argonaut, and former Northern Star Resources boss Bill Beament. International instos IFM and 1832 Asset Management are on board as well, a huge fillip for Ballard when it does come time to raise capital to develop the Baldock mine. "We've been very fortunate to attract that calibre (of investor) and knowing that they'll be there in a couple of years' time when we hopefully do look to build it. You'd expect there to be supportive shareholders," Brennan said. Exploration focus Ballard sits in an enviable position, and stands as a logical M&A prospect either in concert with the privately owned Aurenne Group's Mt Ida project just 6km to the south or a larger player further a field like Ora Banda (ASX:OBM) or Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD). But Brennan says the focus is not on an endgame. "We're all friends, we all know each other. There'll be just ongoing casual chats in that space ... as good neighbours do. But you've got to be in control of your own destiny. Hope is not a strategy," he said. Rather, the big prize is seeing how substantial Ballard can make its Mt Ida deposits, and what might be lurking at up to 20 prospects already identified across the vast tract of greenstone under the company's control. Alongside its strong register, Ballard's battle hardened board brings with it a wealth of experience operating in WA's gold sector. With Brennan is non-exec chair Lill, fresh from his success at De Grey, along with former Ramelius Resources CFO Tim Manners as finance director and Delta MD James Croser as a non-executive director. The other non-exec director, and one of two independent directors with Lill, is Stuart Mathews, recently retired from his role as Australasian head of Gold Fields, one of the world's biggest gold miners. "He's used to looking at big camp-scale projects, big exploration budgets," Brennan said. "Our two independent non-execs, they're both suggesting that we just need to understand how big this thing is or potentially could be, before we start betting down flow sheets and production rates and start talking about feasibility studies." Drill to kill Brennan says the aim is to "drill to kill". "Someone said to me a couple of weeks ago, you've got to take the pharmaceutical approach and just drill to kill," he said. "And if you can't kill it, there's an orebody there. "We've got 18 to 20 identified prospects to make our way through. "The early results have been encouraging but I'd like to think we're going to be reasonably mercenary about how we go about this exploration drilling. "We're not worried about trying to keep ourselves gainfully employed for the next five years. We just want to get on with it and we've got the money in the bank to do that." The understated upside for Ballard is how simple its permitting will be, in a world where that aspect of mine building is getting more arduous and costly by the day. Its assets sit on granted mining leases with no native title concerns. And BM1 has already submitted a works approval application to approve a 1.5Mtpa carbon in leach processing plant and tailings facility ahead of mining and environmental studies. "That's been a sort of six to eight month process. We're nearly there. If we want to go back to DWER (WA's Department of Water and Environmental Regulation) and amend that, maybe that's a three or four month exercise. So we're quietly derisking the project in the background." With Baldock's advanced nature, the geology is also at a far more progressed state than you'd expect from an $82m capped explorer. "We see Baldock providing the first five or six years of the mine life. And then what we're trying to achieve with the exploration drilling is you start to get visibility over the production years six to 10," Brennan said. "That's the benchmark for building an operation of standalone scale."
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
AI not a 'straightforward' fix for ailing productivity
Australia has been warned against the "seductive" pull of artificial intelligence as the federal government looks to the technology to help solve its productivity woes. AI is expected to take centre stage during the second day of the government's economic reform roundtable, alongside regulation and competition. Though he recognised its risks, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has previously said AI could be an economic "game changer" to boost Australia's ailing productivity and lift living standards. But Monash University human-centred computing lecturer Jathan Sadowski warned the story was not so simple. "AI changes the nature of work but it doesn't straightforwardly make work more efficient or more productive," he told AAP. "It produces all kinds of new problems that people need to adjust to: they need to fill in the gaps with AI, or they need to clean up the mess after AI does something in not the right way. "A lot of organisations are simply not prepared to do the hard work necessary to implement AI." To use AI well, businesses would have to change their practices so they can complement the capabilities of the technology, which generally requires significant infrastructure work, capital investment and human labour. The technology also works best when it is purpose-built using specific, high quality data for an organisation's specific subject area. This means having lots of smaller scale technologies, which runs counter to the prevailing understanding of AI. "There's this real push towards universal models - something like ChatGPT - it's the one model to rule them all, one solution to every problem," Dr Sadowski said. "It means that you can sell the technology to every market and from the government's point of view means that all you have to do is implement this one solution. "There's something very seductive to that because it tells a good story ... but it doesn't produce good technology." Research about AI's impact on productivity shows mixed results. A recent CSIRO study of 300 employees found one in three did not report productivity benefits, and the majority that did expected the improvements to be better than what was delivered. Analysis published in the US National Bureau of Economic Research showed unclear results at the organisational level and it can also be difficult to disentangle the impact of AI from other factors.
