How many people want to come home from work and flop in front of TV? How many want to eat a quick dinner and run out to a community meeting?

It seems as people lead faster and faster pace of life, there’s evidence that most people choose to stay at home rather than go to a community meeting even about matters that they care deeply about. They just don’t have the energy for the face-to-face engagement or they think the quality of engagement is not meaningful enough.

However, the recent studies we have undertaken prove that there is a desire and willingness for engagement. Almost half of the people surveyed in our recent Gladstone Industry Leadership Group poll say that they are only consulted and communicated with a “little bit or not at all”.  When we asked how they wanted to have information shared with them the strongest preference was the newspaper. A massive 77% of people wanted more information in the local paper. Just 5% of people wanted to be engaged face-to-face. Five times more people wanted to be engaged via the website (23%).

This column gives us the chance to share information in the newspaper. But there’s a downside, you can’t engage with us in a two-way dialogue through the newspaper that easily.

Our new website gives us the chance to update you regularly and also provide a new way of engaging you. Web 2.0 gives you the opportunity to engage us anonymously and when it suits you. Through our forums you can ask us the questions that you want to ask, tell us about your views, have conversations with others and have us respond to you in a two-way and open manner. Your views will be valuable to us to develop our program and to take on board your perspectives.

Our first attempt at this new type of engagement through web forums is on transparency and how we can apply that to the air emissions issues that 75% of people surveyed told Queensland Health they were concerned about. So far you couldn’t call the forums a success! We’ve had less than 20 views, only 1 person comment and 0 people voting. We’d love to know how we can make these forums successful and to get more people sharing their perspectives. Please go onto the website www.gilg.com.au and click on forums on the orange banner in the middle of the site.

We hope that with these interactions we’ll be able to report back what people think and what we’re doing about it in columns to come.

cheers for now, Kurt

One of the pleasures I have in my role is to meet some of Gladstone Industry’s extremely professional and conscientious workers. Everyone of them aims to do their job to the very best of their ability and are completely focused on achieving zero incidents – be they related to health, safety or the environment.

Unfortunately we don’t always achieve this, as was the case with a recent fire in BSL’s Carbon Bake Furnace 3 (CBF3). Incidents like this are unacceptable to both the local community and Industry.

As you’re probably aware, there was also a fire in the same part of the operation in 2007. While two fires in the same place in two years may sound suspicious, after a recent inspection of CBF3, I can assure you that they were in fact unrelated and that substantial changes have occurred since the 2007 fire.

CBF3 is a 250-metre by 70-metre building where pressed petroleum coke anodes are gas fired over about two weeks in a 30 hour rotational process. The anodes are about the size of a bar fridge and are used in the aluminium smelting process. The exhaust gases from the furnace pass through a baghouse before passing through a stack into the atmosphere.

One of the reasons why the 2007 fire was so severe was that a surge of furnace exhaust gases set CBF3’s baghouse filters on fire. As a result of this, the fire drenching system in the CBF3 baghouse was overhauled and improved.

Of course a drenching system is insurance and, like insurance, it’s not something that you want to use unless you have to. As part of the improvement work identified by the smelter, the CBF3 furnace is going to be rebuilt at a cost of $29 million. Due to its scale and complexity, this task will take nearly two years. While this work could not prevent this most recent incident, it will further minimize the chance of fire in CBF3.

As those of you involved with Industry know, safety is the number one priority. You can be assured that Industry, workers and managers alike, are committed to that target both for their teams and their community

For more information about Gladstone industry or to read our Frequently Asked Questions , please go to gilg.com.au. You can also anonymously register and comment or vote on our forum topics.

I look forward to talking to you soon, cheers, Kurt.