Director & Owner, Mallard Contracting
Mallard Contracting is proudly 100% owned by Wajarra-Nanda man Robby Mallard.
As part of his services and a core component of Robby Mallard’s business ethos, is the commitment to helping improve the lives of Aboriginal people and their communities through training and development opportunities and by providing sustainable, culturally appropriate employment.
Robby Mallard uses his company as an incubator for Aboriginal people who are engaged by Mallard Contracting, but also those who have had a bad hand dealt to them and this option for employment may be their last chance to make good and step off the treadmill of poor life choices without prior mining or construction experience.
Robby Mallard was born in Carnarvon in 1971 to Robbie Senior and Shirley. He was the second eldest of 3 children. They lived in Carnarvon, W.A. in a very basic tin home. The house had sand floors and was extremely crowded with extended family members.
For Robby there was evidence of insufficient social investment with very few places for a young Aboriginal male to be engaged with ’normal’ developmental activities. There was nothing like today’s PCYC or other organised social activities for them to occupy any spare time.
Throughout Robby’s developmental years and due to the rural location of the family, this meant there were disparities in education, health and nutrition, with many basic services not readily available. The inequalities relating to ethnicity, race and geographical location compounded together to form social inequality that the Mallard family were not happy to sit back and accept without first making the effort to rise above these challenges.
Carnarvon was a good town for Aboriginal people to gain employment and Main Roads was a major employer of local Aboriginal people. Robby’s father started working from the age of 8 as a musterer where he learned to read and write on a station and as a result eventually gained employment with the Main Roads Dept of WA as a labourer. He worked hard and made his way through the system to become a supervisor staying in this employment for 40 years to become a respected elder of his contemporaries whilst proving to be an excellent role model for his children. His success was a direct result of his excellent communication skills and work ethic. He was referred to as leader rather than a boss. It was this trait that Robby adopted and uses to this day in a most effective and productive manner.
Robby became aware of work opportunities with Aboriginal Housing and was able to secure funding of $2500 from Indigenous Business Australia to purchase a trailer and he then commenced working as a self-employed plumber for Aboriginal Housing and other Aboriginal Corporations for 5 years, slowly building up his assets as a sole trader under the name of Mallard Plumbing & Gas.
During the early stages of re-establishing his business and as a result of an initiative by Rio Tinto, Robby attended workshops held in various locations throughout WA, designed to encourage Aboriginal people to form contracting companies to promote and take advantage of development and growth in the mining sector. From this initiative by Rio Tinto, Mallard Contracting Pty Ltd was formed and through encouragement from the EPCM companies engaged by Rio Tinto, Mallard Contracting commenced construction works at the beginning of 2011. Rio Tinto provided ongoing support and guidance on establishing the contracting business and Robby grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
Not content to stop at two businesses, Robby’s involvement with Aboriginal businesses flourished. Robby now heads four businesses concurrently. Robby became a Director and partner of Widi Ngaruwa Pty. Ltd., another Aboriginal business he developed that provides specialist labour hire to a range of industries involved in building and construction, engineering, decommissioning and demolition, site remediation and various other requirements. As Robby’s name is Mallard his business logo is that of a Mallard Duck. Widi Ngaruwa means “Black Duck“ in the language of the Wajarri people and tells the story of Robby Mallard and his journey and continued growth as an Aboriginal business owner. Through consultation with the Elders and Community, Robby was granted the use of these Wajarri words to represent the business. He pays his respect to Wajarri for this great privilege.
