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TRANSCRIPT
Anthony MacShane
This is an ohs.com.au production
Brendan Torazzi
Welcome to Episode 59 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of a show and today I'm with anthemic. Shane from MagForce. Australia. Hi, Anthony.
Anthony MacShane
Brendan, very excited to be here, mate.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, no, it's great to have you on the show we were we were talking just before we hit the record button that you've had a very varied life in health and safety, if you want to, I guess walk us back to how you got started. You were saying that like lots of unregulated kind of spaces at the start?
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, I guess it shows my age a little bit. But yeah, certainly walk through a few industries that were you know, unregulated as such in the 90s. And right through to what we see today in mining and construction and the resource industry, and, you know, the guidelines and duty of care sort of stuff. So, yeah, I guess I just, you know, out of school looking for a job and found myself in the, in the construction industry in WA, you know, in the domestic and also, you know, high rise buildings and working in the concrete industry, which in the 90s, it was just get the job done. You could have a shirt off, you could get yourself covered in mud and do whatever, just get the job done, you know,
Brendan Torazzi
so you're literally started on the tools as a, like, some form of labor or
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, yeah, what worked on concrete pumps actually learn how to shotcrete which is one of the hardest jobs going around, shot creating building concrete swimming pools, and underground shot creating and, you know, retaining walls and things like that, as well as operating, operating boom pumps, and that sort of that sort of side of things. So, yeah, and then I followed my passion to get into the crab fishing industry was really quite lucrative on the West Coast. WA. And, you know, I've always loved fishing. And
Brendan Torazzi
so what's it what's involved with that you go out for, like, is it days on end? Or, like, walk us through a typical? Yeah, right, cry fishing work?
Anthony MacShane
Well, it's, it's normally every day, and yeah, and you're home every day. And then as the boats as the boats have sort of got bigger, and there's more pots, you know, that they tend to go out for a couple of days. So when I ended my career skippering, I would go out for quite a few days, but it was more sort of really early starts, no matter what the weather was, pull all the pots, rebate them, set them and, and then come in again. So it was every day and, and it was basically seven and a half months of the year on sort of start in mid November and finish the end of June. Yeah. And a lot of that's changed, which I won't go right into. But a lot of that structures change, but it is, it is really physical, good physical work. So for a young guy who just wants to get in repair and bust it's it's pretty good.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. And so what are some of the issues that would come up while you're slipping on those boats? I guess. wild weather would be one I'd imagine. But
Anthony MacShane
while we're there, yeah. Look, there's lots of back strains and pots falling on you. Because, you know, they're 70 to 80 kilo pots that you're lifting around on a moving table if you like. Yeah, with waves crashing on you and lots of rope. So you know, I heard of the few deaths of guys getting caught up in rope on windy days and going over and by the time you turn the boat around this you know Yes. Yeah, so you really sort of teaching yourself and being you're looking after your mate you're looking after the it's a real buddy system. If there's two we have two of you working out the back on deck and you know, as a skipper, you're really watching the whole operation like a hawk. Yeah, lifting a lot of its lifting sort of back strains and things like that and rope burn and then and to top it off the crayfish if because you're handling 1000s and 1000s Every day you ended up getting like it like a skin crayfish disease would flare up and all your arms and all that would get quite flared up. So yeah, it was a combination of things but then your body sort of hardened up to it and you could sort of get through it and you know, you're on the ocean so not every day was rough and catch the odd fish and and eat well and be home early and things like that so
Brendan Torazzi
and so back in the 90s was were they mainly being exported or they go to the east coast or what was the market for like, I'm curious as to where did you sell them tobacco?
Anthony MacShane
No, we we all fit into big coops. So and and while I was fishing, the lives trade really developed. So we started and that's what we see today. And it's been up and running for you know, a good 1015 years or whatever it's been, but essentially keeping the product law out. And then and then you put them to sleep and you pack them in, in sawdust, and you put them in foam crates, and you send them off to Japan now Japan was the bulk of Japan and you know, a bit of that Taiwan and Asian market, and they would put them in cold water and the crayfish would wake up. And next minute they're in a tank in a really expensive, expensive restaurant in Japan. Yeah, well, that that was the bulk of the local markets sort of missed out and depending on different, you know, price fluctuations is how much you actually see in, in Australia, because the bulk of it, it's a very lucrative big, big industry. Yeah, man, it's mostly export.
Brendan Torazzi
And why did you why did you move out of that?
Anthony MacShane
It had a really big downturn, around 2003 2004, there was a whole bunch of stuff, there was SARS, there was was there was some product coming out of America around Mexico. And I'd sort of scratch my itch, I guess, and move the family somewhere else. I went wetland fishing out of out of Exmouth, which was, you know, really good and did some dive charter skippering and things like that. So, you know, that was a whole nother dynamic looking after people on the boat that you're, you know, you have to run and make sure everyone gets home safely. And then from there, I just the wage was a little bit fluctuating. And, you know, we had four kids and big family. So I started getting into the morning construction, sort of Yeah, right, that that that more sort of into the mining stuff in early 2000s.
Brendan Torazzi
So is that when MagForce was born? Around that time? Or?
Anthony MacShane
No, no. Mike Falzone been going on for a bit over four years. So okay, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we're flat, we're a toddler, we're talking about where you are. Now, when often sort of started on the tools in the mining industry and sort of worked as an operator and a poly welder and then found myself supervising and starting to, you know, run some big construction jobs on the mines up in the Pilbara. And that just kind of kind of grew. And I went and did my search for and project management, started running some big 10 $15 million projects with 5060 people, you know, on the ground with all the equipment and all the safety challenges. And you know, from there, I sort of did that for, you know, 10 years or whatever it was, and then started MagForce, which, essentially what we do with MagForce, is we employ people into the mining, construction, civil, you know, warehousing transport industries. So we find people and create opportunities for them into work.
Brendan Torazzi
So So is it labour hire? Or is it more recruitment? Or is it Yeah, it's one of the same thing.
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, it's one of the same thing. But yeah, essentially, we're happy for them to, you know, work for our clients via labor hire model, and then they roll over and go full time with our clients. So, you know, we've always thought outside the box, in regards to recruiting, we always, you know, make sure we really understand the individual, I'm not interested in, you know, just putting shirts on people and sending them up into the construction industry, or FIFO, and away from their families and things like that, that's something that seems really passionate about, we've, we've all worked away, we've spent a lot of time, you know, in the FIFO industry, or, you know, work in general. So, while it's a integral part of life, it's not all of life. So one of our big things is really finding out about the individual. And then, you know, essentially aligning them with an opportunity that is aligned with everything else in their life.
Brendan Torazzi
Sounds sounds like trying to keep that balance happening. Like if you're, if you've got a young family of four kids, you probably don't want to be doing FIFO
Anthony MacShane
That's right. So let's look at, let's look at an opportunity closer to home that still gets you excited, and is still in your career path, you know, in your career pathway. Anything else? It's just a short term fix. And it's not. If I send someone up to a client who don't and they don't want to be there, or it doesn't fit the client, then it's not gonna last long. Yeah, no, no. So we have some really good success with our guys, you know, using this model to roll on and find either enter the, the industry, from scratch or, you know, divert from a different trade or find, you know, their true pathway and, you know, a really big opportunity. So, yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
So you mentioned before we got on the call prisons, where did that Where did that come in and what were you doing with that?
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, it just I, I became interested in providing information into prisons about basically when we started MagForce and I finished working up on site. I was part of a like a careers expo and I saw that there's, you know, there's things going on in regards to training prisoners, which I've never never heard of. And, you know, I met the person from corrections and, and I said, Hey, do you mind if I come in and provide a whole bunch of information because I had 20 odd years of sort of a varied, a varied amount of experience, through a range of industries and sort of knew, knew all the little tips and tricks about how to keep a job and what training to get and things like that. So it was more sort of born from just wanting to share information with with people who were sort of found themselves, you know, making some wrong decisions and ending up where many of us could have ended up, I guess. So, yeah, I basically went in and started providing information from an industry level, and it was really well received. And then I started going into prisons all through WA, and then we started to employ people. As our coming out.
Brendan Torazzi
That's awesome. So you were going in on a, like a voluntary basis. So it was
Anthony MacShane
a voluntary basis for about three and a half years, Mike? Yeah. Good on you. Amazing. Yeah. And me and my team, and we, we just, we just got kicked out of it, Mike, when you see people turn around, you know, turn their life around here. So we've, we've and we've employed 133 People from incarceration today, as of today. And they're men and women, and they come from all walks of life, they're come from, you know, we're now sort of working closely with three different State Department's of justice have gone into prisons in Victoria, Queensland, and all through who and part of every Expo, we've got a whole program around it, it just it just developed organically. I've got someone who's been incarcerated works as part of my team. I've got another mentor who's, you know, just unreal and myself. And you know, there's, there's a whole group of us now that all day every day, we're talking to people, whether they're in prison still, or they've just got out and they want direction. So we worked with, we work with them three months prior three, four months prior, they reach out to us and we start getting a game plan success before they get out. So we've found that that's a real gap. So yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
because it's sort of seems like, just like you can make a wrong decision and you go down the wrong pathway. Would it be fair to say that, if you give some of these people a break, that's that's all they need to make, start making better decisions and going in the right direction?
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, absolutely. I am not condoning crime. I'm not condoning some of the horrible, horrible things that people have done that are in prison, and the victims that they've left behind on, not on, you know, there's, there's four, there's a bit over 40,000 people incarcerated in Australia, any particular day,
Brendan Torazzi
did you say 40,000 40,000.
Anthony MacShane
So there's four as 47,000 released annually. And our prison numbers have grown by 65%, over 15, the last 15 years just keeps growing. We just keep building bigger and bigger prisons. So while people are making mistakes and doing horrific stuff, there's actually people in there who have had trouble backgrounds never had a father figure die and gone off the rails, they've been involved with the wrong circle. They've just got disillusioned with life and made wrong decisions. And you know, we don't work with all of them, we work with the ones who put their hand up and go, Hey, I'm ready for change. Yeah, and, and you really see it in in the ones that do the do want that change. And and they've had enough, they don't want to, you know, we've had guys who have done 16 to 20 years of crime, that's all they've known, they haven't finished education. They've just and we've turned them around, put them through a bunch of training, giving them the support, given the through care, place them in the proper employment, you know, really sort of ease their way back into the reintegration back into society. And that's got to be good not only for the individual, but certainly for society and community.
Brendan Torazzi
100% So how do you how do you get over the I guess the employers lead have to find some particular employers that don't, you know, they'd be open minded to go, Okay, we're gonna give this person a break and
Anthony MacShane
might absolutely, yeah, great question. Because when I first started doing it, it was, you know, four years ago, it was like, Hey, man, this is this is what this person looks like. This is what he's done everything like that. And, you know, the first year we employed say, five or six, and now we're employing I think we've employed 96 or something in the last eight months. The Yeah, wow. Yeah. So it was a slow momentum. To answer the question, once an employer understands the process, and the due diligence and the risk mitigation and Whole wraparound of support that we offer. Yeah, they get it, they get it and also, and also let's we're talking about a skill shortage like this country has never seen in industry. It's on every news I just had the, you know, the jobs summit and things like that. So we're actually tapping into a cohort of workers that are largely overlooked. And we've pulled very skilled people out of prisons, your plumbers, electrical instrumentation, technicians, Boilermakers, diesel fitters, you know, mechanical fitters are everything that the industry needs are there but they just need a little bit of work and bit of support when they get out. So once I actually explained the whole process, that I'm not just grabbing these guys, and I don't know anything about them, and we're putting on a shirt, and then they're your problem makes it Yeah. Once we actually explained the whole process, a lot of companies are, you know, really up for it. And I have companies who just want ex offenders would you leave people out of incarceration?
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, I guess I'd be like, could be very hard workers
Anthony MacShane
made are they want, there's a stat there's something like 78% of companies who employ someone from incarceration have an overwhelming, overwhelmingly good experience. So once again, you you're not, you know, the challenges that this person have, and, and you support them in that. And then also, the trust piece is a really big one for us. Once the employer trusts the worker to drive the car, go to work front up and represent the company. There's a bond there, and you know, some of these men or women, it's the first time anyone's trusted them, or they've had any sense of worth. Yeah. And we all want that, don't we? We all we all want to feel that. And quite often that's they've they've had, they've had childhoods and backgrounds that none of us have got any idea about, and you know, so. So yeah. I think something like 66% of people who go back into jail, are unemployed at the time. Yeah, that just makes sense, doesn't it if you're sitting around, and no one wants to employ you, and you're feeling a bit lost and that your skills don't suit anyone. And we just go back to what you know, you just you just just keep you just keep doing that, that circle of life so so that's that's our real passion was founded a nother company. We've done a lot of great things with MagForce. But we've started a social enterprise called reboot Australia. And that purely specializes in reintegration through care employment, doing traineeships working with government working with big business to employ people out of prison all around Australia. So it's really exciting.
Brendan Torazzi
Oh, that's awesome. So, but just want to drill down a little bit more so understand. So you're with the the inmates that you target, they've already got qualifications to start with? Or are you putting them through, like, for example, maybe they had a qualification when they were younger, and then they went off the rails for a bit ended up in jail. And you're kind of refreshing those skill sets. Is that Is that the sort of typical person you're looking for?
Anthony MacShane
It's actually a little bit of everything, because it's a snapshot of it's a snapshot of society. I mean, we've got white collar crime in there. We've got engineers we've got, yeah, yeah, we've got a little bit, a little bit of everything. So we do have skilled people who are ready to go. And what I mean by that they've, there, they've had 15 years experience with their trade. They're highly experienced. And they've done two years. And you know, quite often, quite often unrelated and things like that. So we have our skilled people who are ready to go, we have people who have done a little bit of everything, and like you say some of their tickets might have run out and they just need a little bit of assistance, shaping that back up and maybe started at a lower level than what they were used to. And off they go. And then we have another sort of third who just want direction and looking for your traineeships and apprenticeships I get so many guys go this is my I just I've never done this, but I've always wanted to do an electrical apprenticeship, or have I got halfway through doing my diesel fitter, you know, apprenticeship now now have grown up, it's time to finish so yeah, so it's a bit of a snapshot. So it's really individual. It's just, you know, we find out about the individual and then we can best sort of get career advice and then align them with an employer. Yeah, a like minded employer who cares. Anything else in this space doesn't kind of work that from from our experience, you know, yeah, you got to play Fallout.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, as you say the common denominator is that they all want change and they're all keen to go down a different pathway.
Anthony MacShane
Absolutely. All look our our dream is to really change the social fabric of Australia. We want to win For 10,000, over over five or six years, and we want to have we know what our program looks like, and we want to have mentors everywhere. And we're, we're gaining momentum. Right. And it's pretty exciting.
Brendan Torazzi
That's great. I was speaking to someone the other day about the prison system in America, and it's largely privatized over there. What's it like in Australia? Like, is it mainly public or private? Because when it becomes private, I guess there's a whole heap of lobbying behind the scenes to ensure that people remain incarcerated. To some degree.
Anthony MacShane
Yeah. So it's, there's a little bit of private, but it's predominantly public and run by government. So all the government ones are sort of synchronized. I guess there's transfers between those that they still do transfer into the private one. Yeah, there's I don't want to be too political. But there is there is major. Yeah, that the private model isn't conducive to AS degree integration is what it
Brendan Torazzi
could do. Yeah. Well, I mean, the public one is probably looking for what's best for the community, whereas privates probably driven more by profit. So
Anthony MacShane
yeah, yeah. So we see gaps in that that's, that's, that's probably the best way I can say we see the gaps and the critical gaps, they get the gaps, right, at that point of reintegrating back into society. And while there's some beautiful programs in some of those, some of those prisons, I just think that it doesn't gel as neatly as what it could do in regards to having these guys not come back at all.
Brendan Torazzi
And do you find that placing, like some of these ex offenders, opens up other forms of business, like I guess it's a maybe opens a door for some clients, and then you placing other people through that,
Anthony MacShane
yeah, and a little bit of vice versa, like MagForce, Australia's very much, you know, a medium sized labor higher company that can, you know, do a wide range of industries. So we might establish a great relationship with a client, and we'll start providing them and then we'll say, Hey, he's, he's another, you know, because we got multiple streams of where we find people from. So we work in with, you know, community corrections, and there's all the ex offender side, but we also work in workforce, Australia, we've got great referral network and all of that. So. So once they've had a good experience, then they're open to it. And then other people are really, you know, we have companies come to us who have just heard about, yeah, about the ex offender stuff, and they're interested in that. So yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
I was just gonna, I was wondering whether that might play into, I don't know, some kind of diversity policy or
Anthony MacShane
you, you touched on that nicely. So in Victoria, it's called Yeah, it's called Social procurement. And you'll start to see more and more of this creep into states outside of Victoria. So in Victoria, it's mandated. And what that means is that every every infrastructure spend, I'm pretty sure it's over $100 million, every time they build a road or a bridge or highway, you know, upgrade water or whatever. There's, there's a percentage of funds that need to be spent on diversity, and social procurement, which is just great. It's it's looking after, you know, it's giving opportunity to different ethnic groups, people from disability from ex offenders, indigenous, and you know, it's basically aimed at making the society and community of where the work is getting done a better place when that massive project leaves, hallelujah. So it should be Victor Victoria is actually ahead of the game. It's mandated in Victoria. And most of the states that I'm aware of, certainly New South Wales, Queensland and WA have framework so it's starting to creep in, there's a framework that hints that you know, there should be some social procurement aspects of of your tender before you win this major job. Yeah. So yeah, we used to think about, you know, carbon credits and being environmentally Well, being environmental when you build something big and once again, so we should, it's all kind of wrapped up in social procurement now. So it is diversity, you know, environment. Society's type of good work. So what yeah, we sit in that space. And that's, that's where reboot Australia sits with its social trader certification, and it's operating as a social enterprise. So
Brendan Torazzi
that's revel and see we've come to the end of the podcast if people want to find out a little bit more about MagForce Australia. What's your website?
Anthony MacShane
Yeah, it's just wwe.magforce.com.au. Yeah. And if you reach out via that we can we can have a chat and I can talk to you about reboot and I can talk to you about Manning in general or anything else you want to have a chat about because today's been great.
Brendan Torazzi
All right. Thanks so much, Anthony.
Anthony MacShane
Also made thanks for inviting us on was great.
Anthony MacShane
You've been listening to an ohs.com.au production.
Brendan Torazzi
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