I was 26 when I got my first job working in the mines. It was a great feeling, I was going to be paid a great income and it was an opportunity to get ahead after partying and playing up in my late teens and early 20s.
When you start your mining career the first thing you do after clearing your medical and drug test is you attend an induction.
One for the job site you are on and one for the camp you will be residing in. This is where you get told the rules.
Different camps have different rules. I have stayed at some where you had a four-drink limit every night, I also stayed at camps where you weren’t allowed any alcohol.
As for the mine sites themselves you had to blow in the bag and you had to be 0.0. You would have frequent drug tests, some sites would make you pull pull a black marble from among the other 15 white ones in a bag and off you would go for a drug test.
On our rest days you were allowed to head into the nearest town if you wished. The rules were quite clear, no fighting. It didn’t matter if you started it or not, or if the police charged you or not, it was a rule breach.
What was the punishment for breaching the rules? A window seat on the next flight out of town, and an entry on the blacklist – which all mining companies share – that rules you out from finding employment in the future.
In my six years in the mines I knew a large number of people who were put on a window seat out of town for breaking the rules. Young guys, old guys who you would think would know better. It didn’t matter if you were a general hand or the open cut examiner – if you broke the rules you were gone. There weren’t any grey areas.
Lately the NRL Integrity Unit is busier than a one-armed brick layer in Baghdad. Carrying out investigations, handing out punishments and fines. A NSW Under-20s player uses a homophobic slure and gets two weeks. A NSW halfback gets arrested for not leaving a premises and gets a fine and one-week suspension.
A lot of time gets spent handling these issues, and fans and media constantly debate these issues. Mothers wonder if they should let their child play rugby league.
It is time for the NRL to draw a line in the sand. Set the rules and guidelines and make each player sign them as soon as they are a contract player. If you break the rules then your NRL career is over. Players coming up in the juniors will get taught about the rules. They will be given ample opportunity to know what it is they are signing up for.
There will always be people who break the rules, just like in normal everyday society, and that is a sad reality. But just like open cut examiners, who are the superstars of the mining game, there is someone behind them waiting for their opportunity and ready to take it with both hands.
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All the team list information for Round 9.
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