Casual coal miners who have highlighted the unscrupulous practices of the government corporation Coal Long Service Leave (Coal LSL), have been vindicated in a recent audit by consultants KPMG.
Senator Malcolm Roberts has championed the scrutiny of Coal LSL after he first became aware of many malpractices from Hunter Valley casual coal miners and labour hire companies in 2019.
Senator Roberts said, “This issue has been in plain sight for years, yet successive Liberal, National and Labor governments have ignored the calls for an investigation, instead sprouting platitudes with no action.”
The KPMG report, which the Government ordered in late 2021, makes 20 recommendations covering governance, treatment of casual coal miners, exploitation of SMEs, compliance, and Board governance and conflicts of interest.
Senator Roberts said, “I welcome the recommendation for independent Coal LSL board members to address the current glaring conflict of interest with only Minerals Councils and the CFMMEU representatives.
“The shame of the current arrangement is that CFMMEU bosses on the Coal LSL Board – and who should have known better – enabled, perpetuated and covered up many malpractices, and sold out their casual coal miner members.”
Senator Roberts gathered evidence from many casual coal miners that showed LSL entitlements were incorrectly calculated, and yet Coal LSL refused to investigate and rectify.
“When the casual coal miners themselves could work out that Coal LSL were not calculating their entitlements correctly and notified Coal LSL management, it begs the question why it took a KPMG review for Coal LSL to finally listen,” Senator Roberts said.
Coal LSL’s attitude toward casual coal miners and SMEs has been shown to be unresponsive, dismissive and highly litigious and “it seems that Coal LSL board and management just didn’t know when to stop the money grab, taking a heavy handed and litigious approach to demanding that SME contractors entering coal mining sites for short term maintenance, also pay into their Coal LSL fund, knowing this group would never be able to access the money,” added Senator Roberts.
Coal LSL were reluctant first-time attendees at Senate Estimates in 2019, having never faced Senate scrutiny, until Senator Roberts demanded they appear to account for their actions. They have appeared at every Senate Estimates since 2019 at the request of Senator Roberts.
Senator Roberts said, “There was no way Coal LSL were going to continue to avoid scrutiny because I knew that hundreds of casual coal miners had been systematically ripped off and ignored over decades.”
Although some miners prefer to be casuals, all casuals deserve respect as they allow companies to move with changes in the global market and mine site conditions.
Senator Roberts said, “The mobility of this casual workforce doesn’t mean they should be treated with such contempt and disregard; they too have livelihoods and families to support. “It’s astonishing that successive governments, Liberal, National and Labor, and union bosses, have shown no care for the plight of casual coal miners over many years.”
