RFF

RFF is proud to be involved in the Mulataga Project on Ngarluma Country, working alongside Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation, DevelopmentWA, the City of Karratha and the wider project team.

This week marked an important milestone for the project, with RFF Senior Development Manager Tom attending a Smoking Ceremony led by Ngarluma Elder Kerry Churnside to acknowledge Country, culture and community as works commence.

The Mulataga Project will deliver around 130 residential lots, together with a local park, shared pathways and open spaces designed to support connection and wellbeing as a new community takes shape in Karratha.

Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation has played an important role throughout the project, including involvement in heritage survey work and place-naming, helping ensure Ngarluma culture and connection to Country are recognised as the development progresses.

RFF is pleased to contribute to a project that brings together housing, community and connection to Country, and we look forward to seeing Mulataga take shape.

RFF’s Ren Lee was in Fitzroy Crossing earlier this week with as detailed design progresses for the Tarunda Key Worker Housing Project.

The design takes a climate-responsive approach, incorporating cross-ventilation throughout the units and considered landscaping that retains the majority of the site’s mature trees. These elements will support comfortable living spaces and shaded outdoor areas suited to the Kimberley climate.

We talk a lot about land access in WA in the context of mining, tenure and major projects.

Sometimes the issue is much simpler.

You just need somewhere to put things.

We keep seeing this around regional ports. A business needs temporary laydown space, container storage, equipment staging, bulk storage or somewhere to marshal freight before it moves through the port.

None of that is particularly complicated as a land use.

Finding the land can be.

It needs to be close enough to the port to make operational sense, accessible by heavy vehicles, suitably zoned, large enough to actually work, available on sensible tenure and affordable for what may only be a short or medium term requirement.

Across regional WA, from the Great Southern through the Mid West and into the North West, that combination can be surprisingly hard to find.

That matters because regional economies can change quickly.

A new mine, renewable energy project, agricultural opportunity, infrastructure program or change in commodity movements can create an immediate requirement for laydown and storage land. The freight task can change much faster than the industrial land supply around it.

Having industrial land identified somewhere on a strategy map doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

For regional economies to respond to major investment, land needs to be located properly, functional, affordable and capable of being brought into use when it is actually required.

That is a land access issue.

And while temporary laydown might seem like one of the simplest pieces in the freight and logistics system, its absence can become a very real constraint on everything around it.

For Aboriginal organisations looking to progress land and economic development opportunities, the path from an early idea to a funded, tenure-ready project can be complex.

Our latest carousel looks at the key steps involved in moving from Country to Project, from identifying opportunities and testing feasibility through to funding, engagement, tenure and delivery.

At RFF, we work across these stages to help clients understand what is possible, identify constraints early and build a practical pathway forward.

That can include:

• Reviewing land, tenure and development opportunities

• Testing feasibility, access and project constraints

• Supporting business cases and funding applications

• Coordinating engagement with Native Title holders, PBCs, government and other land interest holders

• Progressing tenure, approvals and land access

• Supporting projects through implementation and delivery

The earlier these issues are considered together, the easier it is to focus time, funding and effort on projects with a realistic pathway to delivery.

Swipe through for an overview of the process.

Getting out on Country changes the quality of the conversation. Late last month, RFF Senior Development Manager Tom spent time on Country with Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation around Millstream and Wuyumarri as part of our ongoing work supporting YAC across land, tenure, and Country management priorities. The value of these visits is being able to hear directly how the different issues fit together on the ground.

In the Pilbara, land tenure, environmental approvals, Ranger programs, cultural heritage, infrastructure, and future development can easily be treated as separate workstreams. On Country, they rarely are. The practical challenge is getting the systems around them to work together in a way that supports Traditional Owner priorities and the long-term management of Country.

For RFF, this is also one of the real benefits of being regionally based. We can be present, build continuity and work through issues in the places where the consequences are actually felt.

Thanks to YAC for the opportunity to spend the time on Country. We’re looking forward to continuing the work.

It was great to see Housing and Works Minister back in the Pilbara recently for the housing roadshows in Port Hedland and Karratha, alongside .

appreciated the opportunity to attend and contribute to the discussion.

I also think it is worth acknowledging the time the Minister personally gives to these regional visits. Getting to Port Hedland and Karratha, meeting directly with local government, builders, developers and industry, and spending time working through the issues on the ground takes a genuine commitment.

It was also good to see a strong cross-section of the people actually involved in delivering land and housing in the region in the room, including TIMIK DEVELOPMENTS PTY LTD, NorWest Civil and Rai, Yurra Pty Ltd, DevelopmentWA, City of Karratha, Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage and Department of Housing and Works, among others.

A particularly important theme from the roadshows was the need for greater visibility of the housing and land pipeline.

For the Pilbara, this is fundamental.

We need a resilient regional construction and land supply sector that can retain people, invest in capability and respond when demand increases.

This requires a consistent pipeline of serviced land and sustainable year-on-year investment in housing construction. Government has an important role in providing that baseline demand, particularly through programs such as GROH, alongside continued investment in enabling infrastructure and land development.

The progress at Mulataga is a good example. Bringing new residential land into the market is important, but the bigger opportunity is maintaining the pipeline beyond the immediate release.

Consistency gives civil contractors, builders, consultants, suppliers and developers the confidence to maintain a genuine regional presence rather than continually ramping capacity up and down.

The focus on both land supply and a sustained housing construction program through these roadshows is very welcome. The challenge is maintaining that commitment year after year.

Learning something completely new can be daunting, especially when you first open a program like Adobe InDesign.

Last week, Antonia completed ATI-Mirage’s two-day Adobe InDesign course, starting as a complete beginner and coming away with a strong practical foundation in the software.

The course covered the fundamentals of working with layouts, text, imagery, styles and document formatting, with plenty of opportunity to put the learning into practice along the way.

Those new skills will have a direct and practical benefit for our team: as Antonia continues to build her confidence with InDesign, she’ll be able to support updates to our capability statements, tailor marketing materials for different service streams, and help us manage more of our brand and communications work in-house.

At RFF, we’re committed to supporting professional development that helps our people grow while also building stronger capability across the business.

A big thank you to Ali at ATI-Mirage for tailoring the sessions to the different experience levels in the room and taking the time to work through questions as they came up.

A great couple of days of learning for Antonia, and a valuable addition to RFF’s growing in-house marketing capability.

A new practical guide is now available to help Aboriginal organisations navigate land tenure in Western Australia, and RFF was pleased to assist the Department of
Primary Industries and Regional Development in preparing it.

Setting up for Success: Land Tenure provides practical guidance on:
• defining community goals and preferred land uses
• completing feasibility, due diligence and business planning
• engaging with interest holders and government agencies
• navigating State approvals, native title and ILUA requirements
• selecting an appropriate tenure option

The guide also includes practical examples from Wilinggin Aboriginal Corporation and Nyamba Buru Yawuru.

If your organisation is considering a land project, applying for tenure or reviewing whether its current tenure is suitable, speak with RFF about how we can assist with planning, due diligence, approvals and engagement.

Tom visited Onslow on Thalanyji Country last week to check in on several projects for RFF clients.

Onslow is a small but strong community with a remarkably diverse economy.

It supports the iron ore sector through Onslow Iron project, and the oil and gas industry through Woodside Energy’s Macedon project and Chevron's Wheatstone project.

It is also developing a growing decommissioning sector, supported by the of Ashburton’s Pilbara Regional Waste Management Facility and .

Then there is the strong tourism industry, which draws on the region’s beautiful landscapes and sea country through businesses such as Mackerel Islands.

And, of course, who could forget Onslow Salt?

Onslow is something of a sleeper when we talk about the enormous value the Pilbara contributes to the State and national economy. It is a small community supporting an extraordinary concentration of nationally significant industries.

We are always grateful for the opportunity to spend time on the ground in the communities where our clients operate; and next time, planning the trip along side the weekend to make the most of it with a bit of fishing will be a key KPI for Tom!

Tom and Owen had a great day at Rio Tinto’s Pilbara Buy Local Expo, catching up with clients, suppliers and businesses from across the region.

Bringing so many local businesses together in one place creates space for the B2B conversations that can be difficult to fit into the working week. It was a valuable opportunity to compare notes, share ideas and talk openly about the opportunities and challenges facing businesses operating in the Pilbara.

Events like this also give local suppliers the chance to pitch directly to the big end of town. We appreciated the conversations with Rio Tinto’s procurement team and look forward to continuing discussions about how RFF can support Rio Tinto’s growth and operations across the Pilbara.

We are also neighbours with the Buy Local and Communities team, located on the ground floor of The Quarter in Karratha. Well done to Navah Holtzman and the team for bringing the event together.

For any procurement team members we missed, feel free to pop in when you are next visiting the local team, grab one of our epic fishing shirts off the rack and learn a little more about what we do.