Ann: Change of Director's Interest Notice, page-25

Drag

When this morning I wrote, “Aboriginal-related politics may play a role too, and the JVs that both BYL and NWH have with Aboriginal businesses may be a significant factor.” I was thinking of the obvious political advantage that JVs with Aboriginal commercial interests would bring to mining contracts on traditional Aboriginal land, plus the political noises that the WA Government and Local Governments make as a matter of routine in respect to all Government contracts – e.g., in respect to the Forrestfield-Airport-Link Project, see https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov....inal-firms-to-work-on-airport-rail-link-.aspx. Whether anything constructive emerges from the WA Government's posturing on Aboriginal subcontracting is a moot point, as is the matter of NWH's history of employing Aborigines and forming JVs with Aboriginal companies, but it cannot do any harm, and it makes for a good tender-document response to the part of theGovernment request for tender that is likely to touch on the matter of Aboriginal advancement.

While Googling the topic of Aboriginal involvement in the Forrestfield-Airport-Link Project, I stumbled upon an interesting fact, and that is that the losing two tenederers are going to get $1m each to recompense them for their tendering effort and costs – see https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/26170276/1m-refund-for-losing-tunnel-bids/ . This means that NWH would not suffer a significant loss if the Salini-NRW consortium is not selected. The WA Government is the type of customer that NWH needs.