![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4c19cb61f8f0f7954cc394758c0c44af.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAn investigation into a maggot-infested meal has halted work on a multi-million-dollar project in North Queensland, with more than 100 workers flown offsite.<\/p>\n
Genex this morning confirmed it had suspended the camp facility at its Kidston Pumped Hydro Project, 285 kilometres west of Townsville, and it was demobilising all but a handful of workers.<\/p>\n
Between 150 and 200 workers are understood to work on the construction project.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Genex Power is developing pumped hydro at the old Kingston gold mine site in Queensland. (Supplied: Genex Power)<\/p>\n
The company confirmed it was investigating a food-related incident, relating to a single pre-packed crib meal provided for a worker on January 10.<\/p>\n
The Queensland Electrical Trades Union (ETU) said photos provided by a worker onsite showed the meal contained maggots.<\/p>\n
Show-cause notice issued<\/p>\n
The company said the local council had issued a show-cause notice to the camp operator this week, with an extensive list of improvement requirements.<\/p>\n
“Genex has decided to temporarily suspend the operation of the camp facility while the improvement requirements are actioned,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“Genex is supporting the contractor to demobilise the workforce from the site, and will maintain the operation of the camp facility until this has occurred.”<\/p>\n
Queensland ETU organiser Rob Hill said workers had long complained about the poor standard of food offered at the camp, as well as broader hygiene standards.<\/p>\n
“This has been a long time coming. There’ve been complaints about the food since the very start of the project,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But if anybody thinks it’s OK to feed workers chicken with maggots in it [they] would be having a bit of a lend of themselves, to be honest.<\/p>\n
“Until this point, they’ve been communicating that the camp is safe, and that workers should have stayed there and continued on, and it’s been a battle to get those workers offsite.”<\/p>\n
McDonnell Dowell Constructions and John Holland, the construction contractor for the project, have applied to Queensland’s Fair Work Commission for alleged industrial action at the site to stop, with the matter to be heard on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Mr Hill said the union’s request for workers to be removed from site was not industrial action.<\/p>\n
“The argument comes down to one of whether it’s safety, or whether it’s industrial action. We rightly argue that it is safety-related,” he said.<\/p>\n
Genex said it was working to address necessary improvement requirements to ensure the resumption of construction at the site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigation into a maggot-infested meal has halted work on a multi-million-dollar project in North Queensland, with more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36024,223732,139139,1295,223729,43,137,223730,223731,44,8146,16863,41,39,42,40,7893],"class_list":["post-426172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-catering","tag-crib-meal","tag-electrical-trades-union","tag-food","tag-genex","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-kidston-pumped-hydro-project","tag-maggot-meal","tag-news","tag-renewable-energy","tag-safety","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}