While there's no nominees from Ballarat this year, there are more women taking up roles at the Ballarat Gold Mine in Golden Point.

As the mine enters a new phase - it remains owned by investors in Singapore, but new management has taken control of operations - there's space to increase the numbers of women working underground as well as in several other roles.

READ MORE: Ballarat gold mine: Consultants step in to rebuild confidence

It's hard work underground, with humid conditions, heavy vehicles, and an unrelenting pace 24-7 - but truck operator Kirstie Pihama said she enjoys the challenge.

Ms Pihama started at the mine in February last year, quickly picking up the tickets required to run trucks up and down the warren of tunnels.

It's about an hour round trip from the portal at the top of the hill down to the mine head deep underground and back, she said, as she runs water and concrete down and mine waste and ore back up.

"I'm underground every day, same as everyone else," she said.

"I love the people I work with and what I do every day, and the opportunities that are available to learn new skills."

It's those opportunities that attracted Trisha Pulham to the mine in 2019 - she started in the cleaning team above ground, and is now the administration coordinator, running the entire day-to-day show.

"What's been really wonderful is when there has been opportunities to move sideways, it's been supported within this company," she said.

"I think it's people within this industry identifying that even if you haven't got the skills or the degrees or diploma, if you're a good hard worker, let's use them in another department - it's important to find those strengths in people, it benefits everyone."

Gold mining is an technical and intricate industry - it's not as simple as digging rocks out of the ground, there's exploration to know where to dig next, and the extraction of the gold from the rock itself, all of which is done on-site and often with local contractors and partners - which was a challenge for Ms Pulham at the beginning.

"I just enjoy working with the different departments, I work closely with mining, which I didn't know a lot about," she said.

"I learned how to speak in the mining language, I could understand the mining tech engineers and speak their language, geology as well, I can actually have conversations with them and know what they're talking about.

"The headings, what we're doing on a daily basis - it took me a moment, but now I can actually have conversations with the guys, and I know what I'm talking about, and they can understand me as well."

The mine's general manager, Stephen Jeffers, said attracting more women to the industry is a priority.

"We're going to be looking at our employment practices and systems to try and attract more women here, and not just women, we're expanding on that with Indigenous engagement as well, I think that's lacking here, and have a more representative cross-section of society working here than what's reflected," he said.

"At the moment, the place is full of white guys, really - that's not a reflection of society as a whole, and that's what we want to move to."

More broadly, he said the industry needed to examine why women were choosing not to jump in.

"The resource industry typically hasn't been one where female participation has been all that high, there may be some inherent reasons for that, but the way I'd like to see it is that those reasons are not something the resource industry itself has created," he said.

"We have to examine those reasons and then get rid of them, then hopefully it just becomes another standard industry that women might want to look at participating in - at least then there's no artificial barriers for them to participate."

Ms Pulham said anecdotally, she knows women excel in roles at the mine.

"What I know about women here, especially underground, generally we're a lot more careful, so we do tend to pay attention to detail a lot more, we're not as rough-and-tumble as some of the guys," she said.

"It's a very general statement, but that's what I've heard from the shift bosses, that women do tend to take care.

"It's just nice seeing other females around the place, and there are, at time, being in a male-dominated environment, that you do need to just be confident, I suppose - you don't have to say too much, the guys allow that space, and I get along with all of them."

Ms Pihama said she sees herself working at the mine well into the future, and encouraged people to consider the industry, particularly as the Ballarat mine plans to expand.

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"I can't really see myself anywhere else," she said.

"As long as you're willing to have a go, you'll be fine, you'll get looked after, people show you the ropes.

"It is high risk work, but there's nothing to be scared of, if you're willing to have a go, anyone can do it, and there are plenty of opportunities - there's still so much to learn, and that keeps me excited."

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