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One Nation Uses its Voice to Back Real Project From the Heart

The Iron Boomerang inquiry was initiated by One Nation because we saw the project’s undeniable benefits.

This 3,300 km transcontinental railway represents significant advantages to all Australians across the top end by connecting Central Queensland with the Pilbara in Western Australia. It will increase our GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars from the steel alone, without counting the concrete, fertiliser, and other by-products.

This project offers a boon to Australia. One that is tangible and has details backing it up. One that makes money — doesn’t just cost money. One that keeps wealth in Australia rather than sending it offshore to further enrich foreign interests. One that will truly improve the lives of indigenous Australians with a multipurpose corridor bringing utilities, transport and tourism to their communities.

I look forward to seeing this project proceed further. The Iron Boomerang a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this government to make a difference for all of Australia.

Transcript

As a servant to the many varied people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry’s report into the project known as Iron Boomerang. One Nation’s Senate motion initiated this inquiry because of this project’s undeniable benefit to all of Australia. I thank the committee and the secretariat for their work, and I thank the witnesses for attending. This is a complicated project, and the committee and the secretariat have done a great job of processing the information presented across different hearings. Project lead Shane Condon has made this his life’s work, and Australia must be forever in his debt for the vision, application and sheer determination that he has shown. One Nation is fully supportive of the report’s recommendations.

As this project moves forward to a new era, I must remark that Project Iron Boomerang is probably a misnomer. It does consist of a 3,300-kilometre transcontinental railroad with heavy-duty axle capacity connecting existing rail networks in the iron ore region of the Pilbara to the existing coal rail networks in Central Queensland. Iron ore will be transported from Western Australia to Queensland, and those carriages will then be loaded with coal to transport back to the west, hence the boomerang in the name.

Steel mills at either end combine these minerals into steel—the world’s highest-quality steel at the world’s lowest price. Steel is a huge industry that helped build the wealth of this nation, and will do so again. It is also building the wealth of many nations right now. Steel is then exported as container traffic backload through ports in northern Queensland and Western Australia, offering faster and cheaper market access for our steel as against our competitors.

The fundamental benefit of this system is to reduce freight to the smallest possible footprint, economic as well as carbon dioxide for those who think that’s important. Less coal will be exported across the world in bulk oil carriers that burn 200 tonnes of heavy diesel oil a day, carriers that then return empty while burning another 100 tonnes of oil a day on the way with huge reductions in carbon dioxide for those who believe that we need to cut human production of carbon dioxide. Less iron ore and dirt will be exported from Western Australia across the world, saving the heavy diesel consumption and again reducing carbon dioxide production and the cost. Instead, ore is transported a shorter distance in a gas electric train offering a huge competitive advantage for Australian steel and a huge benefit for the environment—the real environment, as well as that carbon dioxide sky-gas nonsense.

The committee rightly identified the railroad and the steel development are separate issues. It’s possible, as Senator Canavan has pointed out, that ships can operate the boomerang trip in first phase of the project, and we’ve had that confirmed since. The southern route is slightly longer than a direct rail link but will cost less at around $10 a tonne versus $40 a tonne for the railroad. Having said that, the railroad will become the cheaper option after the volume of ore and coal being moved exceeds 150 million tonnes a year. This point will be reached with the second stage of steel production, which is to increase the mills from 10 to 20.

The railroad carries many other benefits the committee did not hear in evidence that East West Line Parks may like to correct during their discussions with Infrastructure Australia. Grazing interests have expressed a strong desire to use the line to transport cattle from the remote cattle stations to the east and then to markets overseas. That trip is currently done using road, which puts the animals under pressure and causes a costly reduction in body weight of around 15 per cent. Rail offers a smoother, faster ride and a reduction in body weight of only five per cent. That’s a benefit all round.

Aboriginal interests own many remote cattle stations employing Aboriginal workers. This rail will represent a significant benefit to the Aboriginal community right across the Top End. Agricultural interests would use the rail line to take production from the Ord River irrigation area to market in the east, reducing their freight costs by 50 per cent or even more. The line will open stranded asset rare-earth mines that hold mineral reserves we need to make the electric cars, batteries, windmills and solar panels necessary for net zero. Hmm. The line will open the currently inaccessible East Pilbara, an area containing significant mineral wealth, while adding additional life to existing mines across the Pilbara.

Environmentalists oppose mining and oppose expanding the steel industry at the same time as calling for a transition from petrol to electric cars and the covering of our continent in steel transmission towers and steel wind turbines. Environmentalists can, of course, use their favoured building material—compressed rainbow unicorn farts. The rest of us though use steel. Project Iron Boomerang is not unique. The 2,300-kilometre Tarcoola to Darwin railway was completed 10 years ago. It was completed in five years at a cost of just $3.5 billion across similar terrain. This is not complicated engineering. Railroads like this are being built overseas, and a shorter railroad was recently completed in the Pilbara. We can do this.

A second aspect of the east-west railroad is the multifunction corridor that would normally be built alongside a railway such as this. For a small additional cost in relative terms, this could be upgraded to hold a fibre-optic cable, water and power trunk lines. These, in turn, could provide town water, power and the internet to regional and remote communities, mostly Aboriginal, right across the Top End. Sidings along the route would allow for a local passenger or freight train to improve transport and freight services to these same remote communities.

Tourism is another likely benefit. The Ghan can expand to offer what would be one of the world’s ‘must do’ trips, offering real employment to the Aboriginal community. I hope that Infrastructure Australia pursues inquiry into this aspect of the project. One Nation would love to see homes built with power, water and the internet for remote Aboriginal communities. Iron Boomerang holds that future for these communities. I hope that Infrastructure Australia reviews this most exciting aspect of the project.

The committee has recommended a separate inquiry be held into the steel component of Project Iron Boomerang. The terms of reference are well chosen, with one suggestion. During many meetings, as part of promoting this project, I met with an Australian company that has technology which captures carbon dioxide from the steel mill’s steam stack and combines that output with seawater to produce valuable commodities such as ammonia and ethanol. The process is self-funding. These building blocks can be turned into fertiliser, AdBlue, ethanol and many other products that Australia currently imports. These are not just by-products; they’re products essential to our national security. I hope the steel inquiry hears evidence on how a commercially proven coal-to-hydrogen process can power an electric arc furnace—’green steel’, if you want to use that term. There are, though, many questions around this process that’s years from commercial reality, especially in terms of quality; it’s brittle at the moment.

World steel demand is expected to remain at two per cent growth over the medium term, with the new developing crescent of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan taking up the slack from maturing Chinese, USA and European markets. Indonesia is constructing a new national capital, with construction extending to 2040. This alone will consume the output from our Project Iron Boomerang phase 1 steel mills. If we’re to wind back exports of coal for power in the name of climate change—and I hope we’re not; One Nation strongly opposes this—substituting the use of coal for power with the use of coal for steel would provide continuity of employment for the coal industry, something that should keep unions happy.

Another economic benefit of the steel mills is fly ash, a by-product of steel manufacture when the power source is coal. Fly ash can replace 20 to 30 per cent of the cement in concrete. Project Iron Boomerang will result in the construction of new concrete plants to utilise the steel parks’ by-products. As even the Greens would agree, you can’t do wind power without concrete, and Australia does not have enough concrete for the job. The world steel market is worth A$2 trillion a year. Iron Boomerang will increase Australia’s GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars, just from the steel, let alone the concrete, fertiliser, ammonia and other by-products.

The committee correctly identified the potential national security benefits of the railway, the steel parks and the port upgrades this project will deliver. The expectation is for a naval maintenance base in North Queensland to service the United States Pacific fleet. The railway offers access to parts of this country where access is currently problematic. I note the Maritime Union of Australia is advancing their rebuilding the Australian shipping and maritime industries proposal to expand the Australian shipping fleet. Project Iron Boomerang steel mills will produce four-metre wide slabs instead of the normal two-metre wide slabs. When used to produce railway rolling stock and ships, this results in half the number of welds and joins, producing a cheaper, stronger and faster product. I hope the union will participate in the steel inquiry and look for ways to breathe new life into Australia’s heavy manufacturing industries, currently languishing after decades of planned decay, a decay that has cost breadwinner jobs and economic security.

With the attractive markets, returns and many by-products, it’s no surprise private industry and net private investors are waiting ready to fund and construct this project. There is, though, a problem: private investors don’t trust our government, and after debacles like Adani who could blame them? At some point the federal government is going to have to put their hands into their pockets to fund the final business case, not because the proponents can’t fund it, but because their backers will not let them. For this project to proceed further, the government must demonstrate skin in the game. I look forward to the inquiries that have been recommended in this report, and I look forward to Infrastructure Australia advancing this project. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Albanese government. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned. Consideration resumed of the motion.

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Regional Queensland Ripped off by the South

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Record mining and agriculture booms from Central Queensland prop up government budgets in Brisbane and Canberra. Yet those same governments rip critical infrastructure funding for dams, roads and power stations out of regional queensland. The rip-off has been going on too long and must stop, regional Queensland deserves its fair share.

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Miners are being left behind by those who are meant to protect them

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Over the past 12 months I have been working through an issue and story that has, at times, brought me to tears. It is about a miner, Simon Turner, who was severely injured on site doing his job. The accident left Simon totally and permanently disabled; he can never return to work. But it is also about the tens of thousands of workers across the country who could end up in the same position.

REVEALED: Shocking abuse of workers in mining industry

Instead of receiving the support and workers’ compensation we would expect, and that coal miners are entitled to, he has been abandoned. Instead of receiving proper entitlements such as accident pay at a full wage, he lives below the poverty line in a garage. The way this has happened has been unlawful, unjust, immoral and unethical. What we’ve uncovered is that this tragedy can happen to anyone and we must fight to have this gap in our industrial relations laws fixed.

CHECKLIST: Are you a miner? Find out if you’re getting ripped off

This is Simon’s story. It is the story of how any Australian can be thrown on the scrap heap by all the people and organisations who should be there to protect us.

Simon’s injury

Simon worked for Chandler Macleod, a labour hire company who employed him at Mount Arthur, a BHP Billiton Coal Mine in the Hunter Valley. He was an active person and he recounts that he enjoyed his job. At the time of his injury Simon was working on his shift at the mine driving a coal truck.

A coal digger did not see Simon’s truck because of dusty conditions and struck his vehicle. The massive collision directly injured Simon, causing swollen L3, L4 and L5 discs in his back, a pinched sciatic nerve, pinched cranial nerve and a lateral tear in one of the discs. The lateral tear in his back leaks fluid into the spine and the resulting nerve damage goes all the way down his left leg leaving him permanently in pain. As a result, Simon’s leg collapses without notice and he deals with ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder and depression from that day.

Simon’s injuries have meant he is deemed totally and permanently disabled (TPD) and he cannot return to work.

After the accident he was taken to hospital by ambulance where x-rays were not done due to a broken machine, but a doctor indicated Simon should be off work for at least several weeks. During his return from the hospital a BHP representative asked Simon if he would meet with the coal superintendent. Simon agreed and met with him when he returned to mine site.

Pressure

In that meeting the BHP coal superintendent pressured Simon to not report his injury. He says that there have been too many Lost Time Injuries (LTIs). LTIs are reported incidents where an employee can’t come into work because of an injury.

The coal superintendent tells Simon to not report it, that BHP won’t be reporting it and threatens Simon that the way the industry is now, he won’t have a job if he does report it. Casuals like Simon have no job security.

Simon is later asked to come into his next regular rostered shift, ‘just to ensure he gets paid’. Simon goes to site and sits on a steel metal bench for four hours and does nothing. The following shift, Simon is pressured to sign a return to work program which he refuses. It isn’t clear who has made the return to work plan and it certainly hasn’t been done in consultation with Simon.

At this point Simon still has no doctor, no x-rays, no diagnosis and no idea what injuries he has suffered. In Simon’s words, ‘No one knew what was wrong with me and they wanted me to go back out into the pit and start working.’

All of these factors lead me to believe it was an unethical attempt to avoid reporting an LTI. By Simon returning to work for the four hours, even though he did nothing, the mine avoids reporting an LTI because they say he clocked in and therefore returned to work.

It is unlawful to not report a serious injury.

The flaws in the safety system

We now know that some superintendents and supervisors within the mining industry are paid a safety bonus, which is directly related to the number of LTIs that happen on their watch. The less LTIs, the higher the bonus.

The bonus system creates a perverse incentive for superintendents and supervisors to hide injuries and not report them. Simon has been a victim of this perverse incentive.

At the time of his injury Simon, like most of the employees on site, was classed as a casual/labour hire employee. Yet during the year of his injury and the surrounding years, there are no labour hire company employee LTIs reported.

Some labour hire employers are far more concerned about money than they are about people and especially people who stand up for their rights. Simon was terminated without even being told. He found out six months later indirectly through a government agency.

Some companies are known to understate the number of employees on work sites and to describe miners as ‘administration staff’ to get lower insurance premiums – if we did this what would happen to us?

Tragically, we also know that Simon is not the only affected worker. I’ve personally spoken to seven others from the Hunter region who have found themselves in similar situations and believe there are hundreds more in NSW, Queensland and WA. We aren’t talking about just broken fingers.

Their injuries were debilitating. Broken backs, legs broken in half and a myriad of severe and permanent injuries that left people trembling just from talking about them. There have also been suicides within the group. Simon recounts that, ‘I didn’t want to live … three times I’ve thought about killing myself.’

Recently, I presented a submission to the Queensland Board of Inquiry into the Queensland Grosvenor mine explosion that could have had fatal consequences. Here I pointed out to the Board that casuals are not even represented on safety committees, yet they make up such a large part of the industry today.

Mine owners like BHP Billiton and labour hire companies like Chandler Macleod don’t care about anything but money.

The loophole

Under the Black Coal Award, a worker in a coal mine is afforded accident pay and specialised treatment for injuries. However mines avoid their responsibilities by using labour hire companies for their workforce – they are cheaper and have less job security.

In some ways and in some cases, employees aren’t classed by the work they do or where they work, they are classed based on their employer. Importantly when it comes to accessing award entitlements, the employer must be in or about a coal mine. Employers like the mine owner BHP easily pass this test. However, a labour hire firm like Chandler Macleod, the one that employed Simon, is not considered in or about a coal mine and therefore the protections and entitlements don’t apply.

Some mine owners use and explicitly abuse this to avoid their responsibilities to workers like Simon Turner.

Simon worked side-by-side with BHP employees, doing the same job, on the same long-term rosters, on the same site and he came home every day with clothes covered in black coal dust. We believe the current method of classification for miners has led to hundreds of cases of exploitation – pain, poverty and injustice – and this must be addressed.

Simon has not received his accident pay or the specialised treatment he needs to live as good a life as he can with his injuries. He receives a pathetic disability payment which is below the poverty line.

Simon contacted everyone he could – the mine owner, his employer, the workers’ compensation authority, Coal LSL, the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman, his local federal elected representative Labor’s Joel Fitzgerald MP, local state Labor MP, NSW Ministers, NSW government agencies and many more – all of whom ignored his calls for help.

The people and the organisations that should have cared for him did not, and you could be next.

If it had not been for people who cared like Stuart Bonds of One Nation in NSW, nobody would be standing up for Simon Turner today.

Please watch our full video with Simon to learn a bit more about his case and you will see why One Nation stood up for Simon and why we stand up for everyday Australians like you.

CHECKLIST: Are you a miner? Find out if you’re getting ripped off

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REVEALED: Shocking abuse of workers in mining industry

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Mr Simon Turner was an employee of Chandler Macleod, a labour hire company, and worked at the Mt Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley.

The mine owner BHP and his employer called him a casual, even though he worked on the same long-term coal production roster and had the same duties and responsibilities as BHP’s permanent full-time workers, doing the same job.

After being severely injured on a mine site, Simon discovered that he was not getting workers’ injury compensation, accident pay and other entitlements that are part of the Black Coal Award.

In fact, his employer did not even classify Simon as a coal miner and instead classified him as office administration, apparently to lower the workers’ compensation premiums. Simon lost all the benefits of the Black Coal Mining Award including  workers’ injury compensation.

During our investigation into the issues surrounding Simon, we uncovered a number of actions that you should take to ensure that you are being protected from similar unscrupulous practices. This checklist can help you to be sure that you are being treated fairly and are covered in case of a workplace accident:

CHECKLIST: Are you a miner? Find out if you’re getting ripped off

Transcript

[Malcolm]

Hi, I want to discuss a story of enormous courage and resilience that brought such anger to me and such tears. The whole industrial relations system is broken and complicit in what is happening to people. The deeper issue affects 10s of thousands of men and women, right around this country, especially in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley.

I worked in one of the industries that this is involved with from the age of 18 to 53 and I have never seen anything like this. The exploitation, the abuse, the negligence, it’s horrific, it’s unethical, immoral, and unlawful with deliberate breaches of laws.

I want to introduce Simon Turner, who’s been fighting this for six years, and he’s going to tell us his story. And I also want to introduce Stuart Bonds, who has developed the trust in the Hunter Valley and he came to us with it and because he did listen to people, and he’s been pushing it at a time when state and federal governments had abandoned it.

BHP had abandoned its responsibilities, Chandler Macleod Group, the CFMMEU in the Hunter Valley has abandoned its people. Politicians, state and federal, labor and liberal have avoided this issue and done enormous damage. So Simon, can you tell us your story please?

[Simon]

I worked for Chandler MacLeod which is a labour hire company at Mount Arthur, BHP Billiton Coal Mine in Hunter Valley, largest black coal mine in New South Wales. I was severely injured at work, while working in dusty conditions.

I was asked by the BHP Superintendent of Coal not to report my injury, which was clearly a lost time injury. They asked me to come into work and not report my injury at all and BHP weren’t going to report it. Now my employer Chandler Macleod, they didn’t report my injury at all which they both have the same duty of care to report anyone that’s injured at work.

Now, they can’t ask someone not to come into work if they’re injured because that’s also a breach of workplace laws, which they clearly don’t care about. They just get people to do what they need them to do so they don’t record a lost time injury for the mine site.

I started at HVO and then moved to Mount Arthur open cut. I enjoyed my job, I loved it a lot. And then one day we were working in conditions that were very dusty, I was hit by the coal digger because he couldn’t see me.

Now the pit was shut down for dust we were still operating ’cause they “still had to get coal out” as they say, he did not see me as there was too much coal dust and hit a metre behind the back of where I was operating the truck and my injuries are swollen discs L3, 4, 5, pinched sciatic nerve, pinched cranial nerve and a lateral tear in one of the discs, that’s leaking fluid into my spine, and then that nerve damage goes all the way down my left leg.

My left leg collapses without any notice and I’ll just drop. I also have severe depression and PTSD caused by what happened that day.

[Stuart]

So I’m in the coal industry, so I know what’s meant to happen. But do you want to tell us what did actually happen to you?

[Simon]

Well, what happened that day, I was taken back into the first aid and emergency area at the mine site, they then called an ambulance. So I was taken to Muswellbrook Hospital via ambulance. I got there, and they assessed me. I was sucking on the green puffer whistle for pain.

They wanted to do X-rays, so a doctor came in and saw me, and gave me some medication for the pain. And they were going to do X-rays at Muswellbrook Hospital, but then they told me that the X-ray machine wasn’t working. Someone from BHP then turned up at the hospital and he waited there.

The doctor said, “Well, you can go, you got to go and have X-rays. We can’t do the X rays here, you’ll be off for a couple of weeks.” So we go back to the mine site and on the journey back in the car, I was asked if I’d go meet with the Coal Superintendent.

I said, “Yep, okay.” When we got back there, I met him in his office. He said to me, “How are you?” I said, “Pretty sore.” He said, “Listen, I don’t want you to report this. We’ve had too many LTIs.” That’s a lost time injury He said, “Don’t report it, we’re not going to report it, and the way the industry is at the moment, if you report it, you won’t have a job.”

So that’s what happened. Then, they told me to come into the next lot of rostered shifts that I had. Just come into work sign on, I’d only have to stay there for four hours and then they’d send me home and they’d make sure that I got paid. So I went in.

The following day, on day shift for four hours I sat there on a steel metal bench, did nothing. On the night shift someone came out, the fill in OCE and asked me to sign a return-to-work programme, and I didn’t even know what injuries I had, I still hadn’t had the X-rays.

No one knew what was wrong with me, and they wanted me to go back out into the pit and start working.

[Stuart]

So why do you think they wanted you to come back for the four hours?

[Simon]

Well that way, a lost time injury, what we know now is that superintendents and supervisors within the mining industry, their coal bonus is directly related in the amount payable with regards to lost time injuries, so the least lost time injuries, the more bonus they get.

[Stuart]

So lost time injuries in a day lost when the employee can’t come back into work. So when you come back to work, you’re counted as being, worked that day.

[Simon]

Yep.

[Stuart]

Even though you sat on a cold steel bench sticking stickers on hard hat.

[Simon]

I didn’t stick anything, I just sat there. I didn’t stick anything on anything. I actually-

[Malcolm]

You’re in pain

[Simon]

Yeah, in pain. And I actually I was on a fair bit of medication. I went and seen the the ambulance guy. He was on site there at the mine site full time, he gave me a heat pack, that was it, it’s all I had.

And then I never went back after that day ’cause I refused to sign the return-to-work plan because when I looked at it, I didn’t know who done it, it wasn’t done in consultation with myself. It wasn’t done with a doctor. I didn’t even have a doctor at that time.

And my employer who was supposedly Chandler Macleod, hadn’t even spoken to me, so.

[Malcolm]

Now Simon as I understand that you’ve got some graphs which we’re going to put in the video. Can you tell us about those graphs for 20… On the year of your injury?

[Simon]

The year of my injury and the year prior to that and for another two years after my injury, the statistics show for LTIs recorded in the mining industry. When I was injured and I know other people have been injured because they have contacted me, I say there were zero LTIs.

[Malcolm]

And we’ve talked to some of those people.

[Simon]

Yeah, you’ve spoken to them, and they’ll come forward and there’s a lot of people.

[Stuart]

Zero injuries at that mine?

[Simon]

In the whole Hunter Valley. Not just that mine, in the whole Hunter Valley and there is hundreds of injuries, reportable injuries, LTIs where people have not gone to work.

Now, the important thing with that those statistics are coming from Coal Mines Insurance and Coal Services because they’re the monopoly insurer for the industry. Now, when my claim has been put through, it hasn’t been put through on that. I’m not a coal miner I’m employed in the New South Wales Statutory System. So-

[Stuart]

You don’t show up in the mining statistics

[Simon]

It doesn’t show up.

[Stuart]

Under the Black Coal Award as a worker in a coal mine, I know that you’re afforded 78 weeks of accident pay under the Black Coal Award and specialised treatment for your injuries. And that’s given from the monopoly insurer, which is Coal Mines Insurance. So what did you actually receive?

[Simon]

I’ve been receiving $400 per week from two other insurers, at first started out as CGU and then change to GIO, New South Wales Statutory Insurer. So I haven’t received any of the Coal Mine entitlements of the full wage for 78 weeks.

So it’s below the poverty line, what I’ve been living on the whole time. Our Enterprise Agreement had provisions in it for 78 weeks accident pay, which is straight from the Award.

[Stuart]

Can you return to work?

[Simon]

I can’t return to work. I’ve been demmed TPD

[Malcolm]

Totally and Permanently Disabled?

[Simon]

Yeah, I can’t work

[Stuart]

So your $400 is-

[Simon]

$400 a week is for life. That’s it. That’s all I get.

[Malcolm]

That’s $20,000 a year, where you were earning about 92,000 earning less than a quarter.

[Simon]

Yeah. So and that’s… had massive ramifications. for me personally,

[Stuart]

So who’s paying? If it’s not Coal Mines Insurance, who’s paying you, who is paying?

[Simon]

The New South Wales State Government has been paying an injured coal miner from the day that I got injured and the claim was filed with CJU

[Malcolm]

And so that’s the uninsured workers?

[Simon]

Yeah.

[Malcolm]

The uninsured workers-

[Simon]

Uninsured Liability Scheme, that’s where I get paid from.

[Malcolm]

So that’s mums and dads who own small businesses and pay workers compensation, premiums are going up, they’re paying for your injury from a multinational company that’s foreign owned and avoiding its responsibilities. And that’s why your workers compensation premiums for small businesses are going up.

[Simon]

And I’m not the only one. There are a lot more people exactly employed with Chandler Macleod and worked at BHP Mount Arthur.

[Malcolm]

And we met with eight of them when we went to Williamtown near Newcastle, and we listened to 8, the bullying, the harassment, the intimidation, the injuries, were just gross. These people some of them are shattered.

[Stuart]

Yeah, we’re not talking broken fingers here, we’re talking broken backs, legs broken in half severe, permanent…

[Simon]

Bullying and harassment it’s-

[Malcolm]

And people who shake and tremble when you talk to them.

[Simon]

Yeah, there’ve been suicides, we know of suicides that have happened.

[Stuart]

The accident pays there to tie you over until you can return to work. Obviously, deemed TPD you can’t return to work, on $400 a week, running out of money, losing your house. What happened at that point?

[Simon]

Oh, that point. I was about to be evicted. I’ve been deemed TPD so I can’t work again. So I called Coal LSL to check on what long service leave I had accrued. They then tell me that I’m not accruing any because I was sacked. And I said, “Okay.” Now my employer terminated my employment a week after I was injured.

They sent a Separation Certificate to Centerlink. They notified AUS Coal superannuation in January of 16, that I was terminated. They terminated my employment to Coal LSL on the 7th of January 2016. And I find out six months later that I was sacked. I was the last person that got told I was sacked. So they tell everybody else except me.

It’s illegal to sack anyone within six months of them being injured and on workers compensation. So not only have they not paid me what I’m entitled to I’ve been paid from a policy that can’t cover me.

They’ve also sacked me and haven’t told me. On the separation certificate, they say, there’s a question on there, has a workers compensation claim been made or will one be made in the future? And they tick no, and this was filled out six months after I’d been on workers comp.

[Malcolm]

So how did you feel when you find all this stuff out and you’re about to be thrown out your house?

[Simon]

I just couldn’t believe anyone, could be so ruthless and do something like this. I just wanted to give up that’s probably why, you know, the depression and everything and that sets in, I didn’t want to live. Yeah, three times I’ve thought about killing myself.

[Stuart]

So whilst you’re on workers comp, you’re not meant to be getting your entitlements whilst you’re on it. You’re super’s meant to be paid your long service leave still meant to be accruing. So that’s how you found out that you’re sacked? That you weren’t, those entitlements

[Simon]

I found out through Coal LSL only because I rang up six months later. That’s how I found out and then I find out that none of those entitlements

[Stuart]

Were accruing.

[Simon]

Were accruing, all gone.

[Malcolm]

Okay, Simon, so let me just check with you. You were… You’ve lost your Award entitlements and protections, you’re 40% underpaid compared with your BHP employees doing the same job, same responsibilities, same duties, right next to you. And your Coal LSL Long Service Leave provisions were under reported.

And when I asked them questions about that, they had never done an audit on individuals. They – They hadn’t done an audit. And then when they did an audit after I pursued them in senate estimates, they came back and admitted that you were correct. Is that correct?

[Simon]

Correct. Everything was correct.

[Stuart]

So our entire industrial relations system is set up with a series of checks and balances, because we have a federal award and we have to make sure the awards are minimum standard.

So to check all this, you’ve got the Fair Work Commission, the Fair Work Ombudsman, you’ve got union bosses that go to negotiations, you’ve got your HR department of your labour hire companies, you’ve got mine safety inspectors, lawyers, senators the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, Coal Mines Insurance, Coal Services, Workers Compensation Independent Review Office, which is WIRO, you’ve got the media.

How many of these people have you engaged with and told them what’s going on?

[Simon]

All of them, hundreds of emails.

[Malcolm]

There’s even two more points I would raise. You forgot the Local Federal Member, Joel Fitzgibbon. Now he illustrates what was going on here, because I’ve written to him, he hasn’t responded.

[Simon]

I wrote to him six times.

[Malcolm]

You’ve written to him six times. and in the interactions we’ve had through the media, we’ve explained the enormous scale of this problem, the depth of the problem, he’s come back and said, “Roberts doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s just about the casual employment.”

Well, that’s a misrepresentation of what’s going on. But you’ve also got the fact that some of these players enabled this to happen, they actually created the circumstances. The Hunter Valley Branch of the CFMMEU looks like it has set this up.

[Simon]

It’s the only way, it can happen.

[Malcolm]

Yeah, it can’t happen without that. BHP have been complicit, the Chandler Macleod Group have been complicit. They have stolen part of your life from you. The CFMMEU in the Hunter Valley has done the same. Some of the bureaucrats have done the same.

[Stuart]

Well, you’re meant to have the Fair Work Commission, Fair Work Ombudsman overseeing all this, to make sure that this exact scenario doesn’t occur.

[Simon]

But it doesn’t have to get to that point. And this is what they fail to say in some and some of the media and social pages that they like to comment on. Not once have I put it in for dispute before it was voted on. They can’t say oh, you voted on it or they approved it. If it gets put into dispute before it even gets to that point, nothing happens. No one’s employed as a casual.

[Malcolm]

So the system is rotten Simon and Stuart the system is rotten. But worse, there are senior players in the system that actively make it happen. Make the corruption happen.

[Simon]

Correct.

[Stuart]

Okay, so you were talking before about putting agreements into dispute before they even get to the Fair Work Commission, to challenge them, to make sure they’re better off overall. So the union have recently contested an Enterprise Agreement which was for BHP’s in house labour hire firm.

So that was the OS agreement at Mount Arthur Coal, which was exactly the same Coal Mine that you were employed at, exactly the same Coal Mine that they have Chandler MacLeod’s still working alongside them, but it was for more money. Am I correct in saying that?

[Simon]

Yeah, the Chandler Macleod agreement pays even less than what the OS agreement does.

[Stuart]

And the OS agreement was thrown out, because it didn’t meet the better off overall test. Yet, there’s people being paid less than that working on the same mine site.

[Malcolm]

And correct me if I’m wrong. They don’t have the conditions and protections that even the OS Agreement has got in it, but that was thrown out.

[Simon]

Yep. That’s right

[Malcolm]

How does this go on?

[Simon]

Well, there’s a letter from Chandler Macleod to the CFMEU that says, “You will not take any legal action against us now or in the future.

[Stuart]

Yeah.

[Malcolm]

What?

[Simon]

I’m serious.

[Malcolm]

I was an underground coalface miner in the ’70s. in the Hunter Valley, I was a mine manager in the ’80s in the Hunter Valley, I worked in the Hunter Valley as a consultant in the 1990s and in the 2000s. There is no way on earth or even underground that the Coal Miners Union would have let this happen. What did happen?

[Simon]

Well, you would think that but basically, it’s their own business model, the union they own the labour hire company, employing casuals, started out as United Mining Management Services, and then basically progressed on to being owners within Tesa and then selling that model on to a larger company called Skilled.

And then basically endorsing EA’s with casual employment.

[Malcolm]

And the bar graph that the stacked bar graph that we’ll put on the screen here that you showed me yesterday indicated that there’s some pretty dodgy deals happening involving union bosses most likely, making money out of it.

[Simon]

Yeah. it’s … They’re business partners with the big mining companies. They basically, they own Coal Mines Insurance along with the New South Wales Minerals Council, which is all the mine owners. They’re a joint venture of Aus Coal Superannuation with New South Wales and Queensland Minerals Council.

And then you’ve got them on the boards of Coal LSL and Coal Services.

[Stuart]

So if one… We’ve see we’ve seen how easy this is to stop, I mean, you just put the enterprise agreements into dispute, they stop the OS Agreement. So we know it’s possible to happen. So if one person or one government body had done the right thing, this wouldn’t happen. This a eight billion dollar black hole doesn’t exist.

[Simon]

So there’s no external scrutiny whatsoever. They control the whole industry.

[Stuart]

They control their own oversight and auditing. So if the… So this is a mine owner, is in bed with the union, and the government’s turned a blind eye, and you have all got screwed.

[Simon]

Yeah.

[Malcolm]

So some of the mining companies want cheaper labour rates. Some of the dodgy union bosses enable that to happen, and they get a cut on it, by the side. So what we can see here is a need for an investigation of all these entities.

We’ve got Coal LSL, Coal Mines Insurance, We’ve got the State Governments Safety Inspectors, We’ve got Fair Work Commission, Fair Work Commission Ombudsman, we’ve got some politicians that we think, we’ve got union bosses all need investigating.

And what that means is that people are no longer protected by the political, by the industrial or by the unions, and they’re certainly not protected by some of these grubby companies.

What it means is that if this can happen to you and hundreds of people you know, and that we’ve met it can happen to anyone in Australia, it can happen to you.

/by