Our commitment to education and employment

We have a long and proud history of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to increase economic participation and build capability.

Community partnership projects, workforce renewal strategies, training and employment initiatives and targeted education programs have been a strong focus for many years.

Building and maintaining our roads are an important source of employment in remote Indigenous communities and providing locals with apprentice and trainee opportunities is a high priority.

TMR's initiatives have included:

Education Towards Employment Secondary Scholarship
Skilling Queenslanders for Work – Get into Transport and Logistics program
Supply Nation and Indigenous Procurement Plan
Endeavour Valley Road Works Trainees
Indigenous Australian Science and Infrastructure Development (SID) School
Indigenous Trainee Program
Peninsula Developmental Road scholarship program
Closing the Gap Programs
South East Queensland Indigenous Trainee Program.

Mitchell Michael—a success story

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Video transcript

So my name is Mitchell Michael, I'm from Cooktown far North Queensland. My tribe is the Balnggarrwarra people so that's Normanby River area, just north of Cooktown.

[How did you start working for TMR?]

I started working through TMR through the Peninsula Development Scholarship. So whilst at uni I applied for the scholarship and I was lucky enough to receive the scholarship. So through that I found some avenues to get in, do some internships. So, it's only rolled on from there.

[How has that journey been for you?]

A little bit of a roller coaster, a bit of jumping in and learning all about government. It's been exciting, I've got to work on some really good stuff and very rewarding work as well.

[What teams have you worked in and what projects have you worked on?]

So I started with the Program Management Delivery team and then I joined the PD&O so straight into delivering infrastructure on the ground which is pretty exciting—so I spent a year in Cloncurry, got to live a life in the great northwest, it's very exciting we got to do sealing a lot of roads that are still gravel so the stuff a lot of people don't get to see, it's pretty exciting. And now I work with RoadTek. At the moment, it's updating a lot of their management system but soon it'll be some auditing, getting out on the job, getting some on the ground experience.

[What has been the best thing about working for TMR for you?]

The best thing I've noticed so far about TMR is as a graduate coming in, I've made a bit of an impact and I can turn around and say I can see my work, what I've done, what I've been able to contribute, especially my time in Cloncurry—I can come back later and say I helped out on this project, so I find that part of working for TMR is great.

[Where you see TMR’s relationship with First Nations people and businesses going in the future?]

I only see it growing. For me personally, coming through the Peninsula Development Road Scholarship, that was great for me to come in but there's been some other students soon. There's plenty of different scholarships up and coming, so I'm very excited to see what happens with that, but it's just TMR's reach—TMR has a reach around the whole state and we impact communities directly, which I think is great and it's a great way to get in contact with First Nations people.

[What would you say to anyone asking about working for TMR?]

So TMR I feel really, is a very supportive network of people, whether it's you know your line manager or senior management it's very inclusive place to work and like I said, you get to get to go back home and do a bit of work back on country so that's great.

Promoting equal employment opportunities

We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities and have implemented a number of strategies to support this, including:

our involvement in career expositions, including those focused on First Nations people
providing job placements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
sponsoring of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through a number of scholarship initiatives
ongoing promotion and delivery of online and face-to-face cross-cultural awareness training to assist our people to understand cross-cultural factors when interacting with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
using inclusive language in role descriptions and selection processes
promoting NAIDOC week and hosting events during the week
fostering an inclusive workplace.

Equal employment opportunities—target is 3% by 2022
	2015–16	2016–17	2017–18	2018–19	2019–2020
Headcount	106	97	122	132	131
% of TMR	1.19%	1.06%	1.33%	1.44%	1.39%

Person kneeling in high vis gear — Trainee, Tristen Bowie, checking the road grade on Mein Deviation project, 2015

Kelsea—living OneTMR

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My name is Kelsea, I grew up in Bundaberg and I have a tight knit family. For anyone wanting to join TMR I would say go for it, it’s a great place to work.

I was offered a lot of opportunities that I don’t think I would have been offered if I was just going through University with a part-time job.

The great things about working with TMR was my Team. I got placed in the Learning and Development Team which worked very well with my Education Degree. The best thing about my team was that they were like a family to me. I got to work one on one pretty much with each member of my team and that helped, I gained a lot of skills from that cause I was able to see what they were good at and what they did in their job.

The thing that motivates me to get up in the morning is know that I can do the best for my family and make them proud of me.

Leaving Bundaberg and my family was fairly tough because I hadn’t been away from home that much before. And so moving away I had to make new friends at university and I made new friends at TMR and that helped me a lot.

Last year I was invited back to Bundaberg to talk to graduating Year 12 students, indigenous students. My school asked me back because I was school captain in grade 12 so I went back and gave a speech about what it was like to move out of home and go to University and the struggles that I faced. I think it is important to go back to where I came from and to encourage other students to go on to further things that may not necessarily be in Bundaberg and just show them that they can do it if they put in hard work.

The advice I would give to young indigenous women wanting to follow in my footsteps is to embrace every opportunity. The reason I am where I am now because in Year 10 I applied for a scholarship, the education to employment scholarship with TMR and I was awarded the scholarship which meant that I was on the scholarship until I finished Year 12. I was then invited to a careers expo with the department and other government governments, I was then offered a cadetship. My cadetship has helped me all the way through my University degree.

I feel like TMR has helped to empower me by awarded me the scholarship all way in year 10 to helping me through University and helping to get where I am today which is now a qualified teacher.

Kelsea exemplifies the success of the department’s cadetship program. We are proud to have supported Kelsea from high school through to her completing a university degree. She is an inspiring woman who has given back to the community through her roles in the Queensland Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, Mentor in the Young Achievers Program and as Outreach Ambassador for the University of Queensland.