Hi everyone,
I have a question from a student that came through so I’m posting it here for others to see.
Question: “I’ve been trying to find how heavily impacted regular road users, such as tradies and goods/service transport drivers, are by the wet season and roads becoming inaccessible to flooding. I was just hoping you were able to answer whether or not they are able to work during the wet season, like spot jobs or projects, or whether they are forced to just plan or be jobless during this time? I can’t seem to find any answers on your website, or I’ve missed it.”
Those road users are heavily affected by the wet season as you have suggested – for that reason, most infrastructure works and maintenance is only scheduled for the dry season as roads and entire communities can become inaccessible due to flooding in the wet season. There may be spot jobs, or works in larger regional centres during that time that are less affected by the rains such as Cairns. Also, keep in mind there will be a year-long need for basic goods to be delivered to communities in Cape York, but some of this is delivered by light plane to inaccessible areas due to flooding. So, I think you can assume most employees are employed for the entire year (as this would also be a significant administration burden on businesses to have to let go and re-hire regularly, and the cost of contract work is higher), however there would be some contract work on certain projects in Cape York only during the dry season if the work cannot be done in the wet season.
I hope this helps!
Best of luck with your project,
Grace
Grace Roberts.
Grace Roberts