Employers are restricting their use of fly-in, fly-out workers across industries in outback Queensland to protect remote communities from COVID-19.
Regulations tightened on the FIFO workforce when the Queensland Government imposed a ban on workers travelling from interstate, unless they were considered integral to an operation.
Mick Tully from Cava Hyrdraulics in Mount Isa has stopped all FIFO arrangements in his 200 person workforce.
"I didn't want to be the company that actually brought the COVID 19 into Mount Isa," Mr Tully said.
"It will effect our turnover and our business but at the end of the day it's the community that we need to look after."
No cases have been recorded in the north-west Queensland city, but hundreds of workers are still flying in from larger centres on the east coast, which has caused some angst.
While Mr Tully has made the call for his business, he stopped short of calling for an industry-wide ban on FIFO workers and said mining was essential to the area.
"We're doing temperature checks for people here in the workshop. The mines are doing temperature checks on people when they go through the gate, that's Glencore," he said.
"I certainly hope that the measures that they put in work."
Health consultations go online
Health services in remote parts of the country, like Mount Isa, are also reliant on FIFO workers to bring in specialist skills.
Royal Flying Doctor Service head medical consultant Katie Clift said the organisation had made moves to limit the number of staff travelling to remote areas.
"We're doing more telehealth for primary health care, which would normally be done face-to-face," Dr Clift said.
"So they're not having to travel between communities and between states, which we are all recognising as a risk to everybody."
However, Dr Clift said it was impossible to stop all of its FIFO workers coming to the area and many were extending their shifts to limit exposure to the virus while they are not working.
"We have one doctor who actually drove himself from Adelaide all the way up to Mount Isa," she said.
"We put some measures in around that so we health screen those people as they come in so that we can protect the community".
Mayor looking to find a balance
Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell believed the FIFO workforce is definitely a risk for the area, but had no intention to block their entry.
"We need to find that balance of keeping the community safe and making sure industry keeps going," Councillor Campbell said.
The Cloncurry Shire Council implemented its own health checks at its airport, with temperature tests and checklists upon departure of any passenger.
"It's in line with the strictest guidelines that the mines are already doing, and the updated restrictions that the State Government has put in place," he said.
Drive-in-drive-out miners were urged to use common sense, as much as any essential worker travelling through the shire.
The Cloncurry Mayor said to close off borders in the shire would be irresponsible.
"To look at our physical location, if we were to say no one could come through Cloncurry, that would destroy our neighbours."
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