Foreign workers get to strike gold Down Under

Rebekah Kebede reports from Australian outback mining town Karratha, on the attractive prospects on offer for those willing to dig deep

LUCILLE LIEVAUX, a 25-year-old French geologist, commutes to work on a plane, a 1,300km journey from Australia’s Indian Ocean city of Perth to the mining town of Karratha, a smudge of suburbia on the continent’s barren northwest coast.

Slim, blonde and passionate about her job, she sits in Karratha’s busy single-storey airport, waiting for a jet to take her home. She has swapped her hard-hat and orange-striped overalls for a short-sleeved cotton top, jeans and sneakers. Wearing her sunglasses like a hair-band, she looks out of place in a departure lounge crowded mostly with unshaven men.