Open Water

Just one deep-sea dive on the Great Barrier Reef and Melbourne girl Brooke O’Mara was hooked. Like many young people who come to Cairns for sun and adventure, Brooke, 20, would do anything to stay and work as a scuba diver, making easy prey for the many sharks in the industry.

The former architecture student came to the northern Queensland resort town on a holiday in September last year. She first went out onto the Reef with Down Under Dive for a day trip as a paying customer.

“After the first dive I thought ‘I love this, I could do this forever’. I wanted the job,” she said. “I spoke to people working on the boat and they told me about the traineeships.”

Brooke went to Down Under Dive office for an interview and was offered a trial.

“I had to sign an agreement that I’d work four days free before they’d put me on,” she said. “I worked my butt off trying to impress people. They gave me all the shit jobs — cleaning up spew, washing dishes, I’d do anything they asked.”

On October 1, 2006, Brooke signed up on a 90-day ‘dive master traineeship’ on $30 per day, working a 10-hour day for $3 an hour, no holiday or sick leave entitlements. Duties included galley, deckhand, hostess, and dive. At any time six to nine young people, backpackers, foreign tourists and Australian travellers were on board working under the same conditions. A skipper, four diving instructors and a purser made up the full crew for each trip ferrying between 60-150 people the 50 kilometres out to the reef for the day.

But $30 a day was not a living wage so Brooke worked in a pub weekends and sometimes on a Tuesday night. She’d start a few hours after her return from the Reef and finish an hour or two before her 7am start at the marina.

“I’d pump myself up with No Doze (caffeine tablets) to keep awake,” she said. “I was exhausted. Burnt out. When I asked for days off, they wouldn’t always give me any. And it was on my days off that I had to do my dive training. It got to the point I didn’t think I could do my job. I was finding it hard to stay awake on watch. It was a risk.”

It was the trainee’s job to set everything up before people boarded at 8am, help with the safety briefing, mooring the boat, fitting people with wetsuits and gear, roping off the boundaries on the reef for the divers and snorklers, cleaning up after lunch, working as a dive guide and as lookout.

“We were never allowed to rest,” said Brooke. “If they caught us we were told off. We always had to keep working.”

One of the worst jobs was being stationed motionless in the water for 2-3 hours with a float in case anyone needed a rest.

Crew complained that they had to go out in all conditions. Some tourists would fly into Cairns just for a day or two so the boat went out in rough, choppy, cloudy, rainy, at times even cold conditions.

“The biggest thing was someone could drown,” said Brooke. “Out in the middle of the ocean that was our biggest worry. A couple of times I saw people crying for help, struggling with the currents. Panicking. I’d jump in and rescue them.”

Watch was a demanding job left to the trainees. Since American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan disappeared after a diving company accidentally left them behind to die in shark-infested waters off Port Douglas in 1998 (the tragedy became a Hollywood movie Open Water), all day trips are marked with tight safety procedures and endless headcounts. But keeping an eye on up to 150 people in the water at any one time is a big call, with trainees on watch for up to two and a half hours at a time.

“We got 15 minutes between the two reef locations for our lunch break,” said Brooke. “Sometimes you didn’t even get that.”

Then there was the language barrier. Half the time people didn’t speak English. Crew relied on manuals. Or the company would hire backpackers – Japanese, Germans and Koreans on 457 visas. But they couldn’t always speak English either.

“You might wonder why we all go barefoot,” announces a dive instructor as the boat nears the reef, tossing in choppy conditions on an uncharacteristically cool and breezy August morning. “It’s not just because we are poor underpaid divers, it’s also the safest way to move about the boat.”

A trainee presents free ginger tablets in one hand and a sick bag, in the other. She confesses she too is on $30 a day, but there’s a rumour the traineeships will be abolished. This is despite Down Under Dive advertising the traineeships on their website and placing a further ad for more takers in the local paper only days earlier.

In reality the crew are cheap labour, not trainees as Brooke was to soon discover.

All starters got four days ‘Open Water’ compulsory training before they can work on the boat, but otherwise they were on their own.

“All training was on my days off, unpaid, in my own time,” said Brooke. “And if you wanted to go out and dive on your day off you had go down under the boat when it was moored at the reef and scrub the bottom. That could take 20- 40 minutes, upside down with a broom or scrubbing brush. It’s not easy to do. A shit job.”

Brooke was one of only a couple of young women working on the boat and before long she also had to deal with harassment and bullying.

“I started off good friends with everyone,” she said. “We’d hang out together.”

Then they got a bit too friendly.

“They’d undo our bikini straps or spray us with hoses,” she said. “Mostly I laughed it off.”

But one day Brooke says she was pushed into the marina fully clothed, injuring her foot.

“It’s pretty disgusting,” she said. “They empty all the toilets at the wharves when the boats come in. It’s gross. The water is brown – full of chemicals, jellyfish and shit. It’s feral.”

Brooke got a tetanus shot and stitches for her foot. But a couple of days later the boys were goading her and she left in tears.

It was January. By this time Brooke had finished her training. She decided she’d had enough and quit. But when she went to PADI, the peak diving authority, to chase up her Advanced Open Water certificate she found that although she’d sat all her exams and done all her dive time, the company had never sent in the paperwork. She was not registered.

“I was still listed as an introductory diver, no different than a paying customer doing a first time dive. I was angry,” she said. “I’d worked 72 days for $30 a day all for nothing. And I’d been working as a dive guide illegally.”

Brooke rang a lawyer and was referred to the Office of Workplace Services, the Howard Government agency said to protect workers’ rights. She lodged a claim for underpayment of hourly rate and training courses not provided.

“They told me to sort it myself with the employer,” she said. “They didn’t tell me what I was entitled to. Nothing happened. Four months later nothing was done.”

But contacts at Scuba School International and the local ALP candidate Jim Turner did want to help and soon got the media and the unions involved.

“Jim was fantastic,” said Brooke. “He took it from two points of view. This is down to the Howard Government. The Ombudsman is not helping young people and business is taking advantage of young workers. As soon as Jim got involved, things started happening really quickly.”

“Dream dive job turns sour: Guide feels cheated by employer, government,” the Cairns Post reported.

But Down Under Diver owner Peppi Iovannella told the Post he’d done nothing wrong.

“We’ve been running this for about 10 years, with up to 20 people a month and we have never had a problem,” he said.

“DUD. What an appropriate acronym for Down Under Diver,” said Daryl Claffey, from the Queensland Training Ombudsman. “It says it’s a traineeship agreement. But it’s a dud. This document is in fact in breach of legislation. Traineeships must be approved by the trainee apprenticeship council.”

Down Under Dive could get a government subsidy to pay those 100 young people it takes on each year 80 per cent wages to do 80 per cent work and 20 per cent training. And they’d get national accreditation. But most companies sideline this because they would be required to give the trainees permanent jobs when they finish. It also means, with so much free labour, they can offer day trips at half the cost of other operators.

These unofficial traineeships go by another name – ‘slave-ing’. A report by Richard Hall, Tanya Bertherton and John Buchanan, for the Australian National Training Authority in 2000 – The growth of non-standard work and its impact on Vocational Education and Training in Australia, 2000 – found there were less than six in 10 Australians in permanent jobs. There was rapid growth in non-standard employment, the report found.

The report’s examination of exploitation in the Cairns tour boat industry is spine chilling: “Not only do workers have to work for nothing for long periods to acquire the necessary skills to operate in the industry, they are often forced to conduct social security fraud to survive.” Trainees interviewed said it was common to lie to the dole office to stay on social security “because you have to live.”

The director of the Workplace Centre at the University of Sydney, Dr John Buchanan, told ABC radio 'slaving' is endemic in the Queensland dive industry.

While the practice of 'slaving' predates WorkChoices legislation, Dr Buchanan says the government's industrial relations changes have encouraged the behaviour.

"I think what's interesting about (Brooke’s) case is that what we have found in a number of sectors is that labour market practices that were shady are now starting to come out into the sunshine because they think they've got the cover of WorkChoices," he said.

"What's happening is that many employees are now finding they not protected by Work Choices and exposed,” he said. “It's got to be recognised that WorkChoices basically legitimates the standards set by rogue employers in the labour market.”

Col McKenzie, General Manager Dive Qld and board member Australian Marine Park Tourism Operators, the peak body for marine tourism in Queensland met with the union in 2005 keen to help clean up the industry and improve its reputation. But many dive companies were reluctant to get involved.

Young workers are fair game on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which generates over $1billion per annum, and attracts 1.6 million tourists each year.

According to state government statistics about 85 per cent of tourists visit the Marine Park in the area offshore of Cairns and in the Whitsundays. Some 730 tourism operators and 1,500 vessels and aircraft are permitted to operate on the Reef with 60 per cent of these operating in the tourism industry.

MUA National Organiser Bernie Farrelly spent six months on the ground researching the industry last year. He uncovered widespread abuse.

“Some companies don’t pay any wages at all for up to six months,” he said. “Divers buy their own gear costing up to $3000, some live on board working overnight on the Reef and are paid only $130 per day for 15 hours work. Many companies profit by selling trainees the manuals and other material for twice what they buy them for, profiting by just under $700 each. Workers are threatened for union association. It’s a race to the bottom. But company owners are very wealthy.”

The MUA submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the workforce challenges in the tourism industry stressed safety for both workers and divers were compromised by lack of training. Workers were exploited. Lives put at risk.

The committee heard submissions of long hours and low pay. Its report released in June this year noted a high labour turnover, a lack of career opportunities and lack of training. ALP members of the committee noted the industry reputation for hard work, bad conditions and low pay were exacerbated under WorkChoices. Use of 457 visas is rampant.

But until now no one was prepared to come forward.

“There are good employers in the dive industry and there are plenty of bad ones,” said ALP candidate Jim Turner. “I take my hat off to Brooke. She took a stand.”

Brooke was subjected to slander and vitriol, but did not blink.

“I’ve already copped flak but I’m not going to back off,” she said. “The fact of matter is I’m right, I did the right thing.”

Brooke’s case became an embarrassment to the Federal Government on the eve of an election. The Office of Workplace Services reopened the case admitting Brooke was underpaid, but only for the weeks she worked after turning 21 – a total of $1361.10 in wages and $439.32 in pro rata annual leave entitlement.

It seems there is no minimum wage for trainees under 21. The World Today, ABC Radio, reported that the Ombudsman's ruling that the federal minimum wage does not apply to some workers actually relates to the Workplace Relations Act of 1996.

Section 194 of that Act spells out that there is no federal minimum wage for employees under the age of 21 unless the Fair Pay Commission has made a ruling that a special federal rate applies.

But Unions Queensland estimates Brooke still remains out of pocket by $5,600 and is supporting her claim with the backing of the MUA.

Along with the MUA, and Stuart Triall from the Your Rights at

Work team, Deborah Ralston of Unions Queensland arranged a meeting with industry representatives and a public forum for divers. Brooke, Stuart and MUA delegates leafleted workers leaving the marina in the week leading up to event.

“Great response on the wharves yesterday,” wrote Stuart. “Around 200 flyers went like hotcakes. Ninety per cent of the staff know about the issue and know something needs to be done to fix it. Brooke was also down there talking to the staff and promoting the forum. She is a champion.”

MUA Assistant Secretary Mick Doleman and national lead organiser Bernie Farrelly flew to Cairns in August calling for the establishment of a North Queensland Tourism Industry Development Committee to ensure better outcomes for tour operators and improved standards and opportunities for young workers in the industry. They also met with representatives of the Diving Industry Association who said they were prepared to negotiate an enterprise agreement with the Union.

Around 60 turned up at the Cairns Yacht Club the night of the lunar eclipse, many of them divers. All complained that they were not paid for the hours they worked – some clocking up 10-14 hour days for six hours pay. Three came forward asking the union for help.

“I know the recreational diving industry is an exploitative industry,” said Mick Doleman. “This government has put the courage of women like Brooke to the test. The system in this country is skewed against young people. Unless we get rid of WorkChoices and the Howard Government there will be more and more of this. You will be slave labour, you will have no say and will have to cop whatever they want. We owe it to the next generation of workers to turn this guy out. The only way to get rid of WorkChoices is to get rid of Howard.”

Mick told the divers the only way to temper the exploitation by the employers was for the workers to get organised and join the MUA. Only from a position of strength will the workers be able to bargain collectively and achieve agreements that deliver benefits that are taken for granted in other normal employment arrangements.

Since the meeting there has been increased interest in joining the Union and fighting for decent terms and conditions.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow was unable to attend the forum but sent a personal letter of support. She described the dispute as another major blow to the credibility of the Howard Government and its new workplace watchdog.

"The laws are fundamentally flawed and leave young and vulnerable workers exposed to exploitation,” she said.

The ACTU president stressed Brooke's situation was not unique and the Howard Government has so far failed to prevent other young workers being abused in this way

“I’m angry, not just for me but for the customers who were diving with me who had paid for a qualified guide,” said Brooke. “I’m angry for all the other divers getting ripped off, people who don’t know what they are entitled to. What these companies are doing is criminal. If no one else is going to stand up and say it, I’m going to. What’s happening is unfair and unjust. The dive industry changed my life. It inspired me on what direction I wanted to head. It offers so much opportunity for travel and training. Once you get qualified, there are other jobs. What’s happening only creates a bad image for the industry.”