Wear It Purple Day, 2023 - ETP

“F#€k off, that’s what pooftas do,” said the man to his colleague who was going to report something unsafe.

“What a pussy c#%t,” said the supervisor to his apprentice who couldn’t lift two bags of cement.

“Where is purple day? That sounds like something for the electricians,” said the homophobic colleague who will defend that statement black and blue; constantly affirming that it was not homophobic.

“Why is it so hard to attract and retain young people to work with us,” said everyone in project management roles.

Four years ago (I had thought it was five or even six years ago) a colleague and I tried to initiate a Wear It Purple Day event across all of our sites. It was shut down, almost immediately, by a construction manager I respected. “It’s not relevant for site, and it’s pointless,” he explained in his unanimated, non-humanistic, engineering monotone.

Four years later, I wasn’t having this. Four years later was last Friday.

There was no doubt we were going to do something. I insisted it was not to focus on the project delivery office, it needed to be politely and personally ambushed across all workplaces simultaneously - and in the theme of that previous project, this was my non-negotiable.

We struggled, our teams were scared, and certainly unsure. I wasn’t budging. We refined our messages with the aim to personalise and inspire empathy. We involved our allies, we sought to involve our client. This message was to be bipartisan, as we paired up together to demonstrate our intention.

I was asked, “but what am I going to say if I’m not speaking.” I responded: “In a crowd of people, the first person to break out into a dance is deemed a weirdo. People will ask what are they doing, and suggest they’re crazy. Until the second person comes along to join them. At this point it’s no longer crazy, but cool. Be the second person.” Take a note on leadership from the below vid.

I requested our team to all look within their personal experiences to find their examples of where they have seen discrimination play out in their role and experiences. People drew from many personal experiences across sport, workplace, and many other aspects of life; sadly not hard or difficult.

I attended four of these presentations across our workplaces at the Eastern Tunnelling Package. Each different, unique, and personally delivered by our team members. The stories were raw and honest, and provoked laughter - particularly when I used real examples of the language I have seen or heard. Comedy can works wonders to make you realise you may be part of the problem - I think some of the laughs I witnessed were a testament to this.

We had an overwhelming, deafening, and defining applause from our demolition sites, something I could never have imagined. These are some of the most difficult audiences to get messages heard nad understood. But here they were at 07:00am genuinely captivated.

The stories from my colleagues Mitchell Grima and Harry Brownlee - thank you. You shared your own respective experiences and the responsibilities we have as adults to correct ourselves on the things we say, that we may not believe, or that are in fact untrue, but not challenged. Visible symbols, albeit simple or small, can contribute to safety, just by knowing that someone is an ally.

I feel proud of the effort we made today, and the impacts that will flow on from our conversations.

The messages I have for you, as I shared with our team:

• Representation is important.
• Construction can be a workplace for everyone, with the right leadership.
• Homophobic language contributes to unsafe outcomes and decisions. The construction worker suicide rate is equally as significant as young LGBTIQ people; so we can and should learn from each other.
• There is one letter missing from the LGBTIQ string, and that’s U. We need you to be an ally to promote safety in and outside of the workplace.

Some