FIFO – Fit In or F**K Off is a stage play. Confronting yet tempered with Aboriginal humour, playwright Melody Dia acknowledges that during her research she heard as many positive stories as there were negative. Based on her own observations as a mine worker, Dia unpacks the shortcomings of FIFO culture on workers and their families. Pay packets are bulging; drug culture is rampant; one’s sense of identity is questioned; and the ultimate tenet is ‘fit in or f**k off’.
A FIFO worker’s cycle is work, eat, drink, sleep, wank, shower, repeat. The gym, bar and the pool are there to remind you that some rich, fat tycoon owns you out there. They meet their quota of Aboriginals just to tick that box. Not unlike the process of assimilation itself, mining companies have the power to desecrate the land and deny people their right to culture. FIFO is an important story that could justifiably be dedicated to the moguls of the mining industry.