THE City of Wanneroo and Building Commission oversaw the issuing of several work orders in an inspection of the Le family’s Carabooda premises last Thursday.
They had warrants to enter the premises and were accompanied by Organised Crime officers as part of the Tricord Polo operation.
TLF Export Co director Michael Le was handed 28 Worksafe notices and five from Western Power.
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READ NOW‘Two of those notices were for unsafe step ladders,’ Mr Le said.
‘Another was for a forklift that doesn’t have a compliance plate for its lifting.’
Another WorkSafe notice included an air receiver, which did not display its registration stamp, and the most serious from Western Power was for an extension cord that ran to a fishpond aerator.
Wildlife officers also were consulted after police found a long-necked tortoise on the premises.
‘They caught it and said, ‘Michael, we believe this turtle came from the wild, we’ll catch it and that’s it, end of story’,’ he said.
‘We have a lot of water dams here, every dam gets emptied about every six months for cleaning and we find these turtles in there all the time. They probably come from the back end; there are a lot of lakes in Carabooda.’
Mr Le described his company’s market garden operations as share farming, which was run the same as a joint venture with others.
‘Eighty per cent of our farm has been running on this system since 1997.’
He said his company engaged subcontracting companies to pick some of the tomato varieties and allowed the workers to use houses at the property where they could rest, dine and wash their clothes.