In the past I was Safety Manager, publisher and editor of Take 5 on behalf of Western Desert Resources in Roper Bar NT. Located 292kms from Katherine NT and a two hour return flight from Darwin. Life at Roper Mine was extraordinary — and that's what I want to share with you today and in the weeks to follow.

Daily sightings of freshwater and saltwater crocodiles, wild donkeys, horses, pigs, buffalo and snakes. It wasn't a Safety Manager's job. It was a bloody adventure of a lifetime.

The challenge was real and immediate — how do you implement daily changes and requirements to keep everyone healthy and safe when Darwin was a 60-minute medivac flight away — and Katherine 292 kilometres down the road — for anyone who came unstuck?

What evolved came from genuine consultation and a simple belief: best interests first. Every morning, as team members sat down for breakfast across five remote camps, a single newsletter landed on the table in front of every chair.

We called it Take 5 Stay Alive.

Each edition was assembled at the end of the previous day — inputs from HSEQ managers, the weather forecast, a fitness tip, a diet tip, and something worth reading that had nothing to do with work. Usually combat sports. Sometimes boxing results. Always something human. We had newsletter representatives in every camp dedicated to printing and placing these on the breakfast tables before the first shift arrived.

There was no phone reception out there. The audience was captive. Quiet miners getting psyched up for another 12-hour shift — and right there in front of them, without a PowerPoint presentation or a mandatory sign-off sheet, was everything they needed to know before they walked out the gate.

Plain English. No jargon. No corporate speak. Just five things worth knowing before walking out of the mess each morning — traffic management changes, reported hazards, new procedures nobody realised they were being trained on, and who won last night's NRL game between the Broncos and South Sydney.

The newsletter had its audience, its space, and its place.

Over two and a half years, we medivaced more than ten people experiencing chest pains — all successfully. We employed a full-time paramedic on site. We established a full gym in the middle of nowhere. And then there was the Roper Bar Boxing Club.