Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We know that mining is one of the toughest and most demanding jobs in Australia and, in fact, one of the most dangerous jobs. It has improved over the years, and safety records have improved tremendously, but nevertheless it's still dangerous. It's still demanding. And, as I said, it's one of the toughest jobs that you could do. Miners work long hours in challenging conditions, often far away from their families.

One of the things that stand out in my mind when I think of the mining industry and the workers in mining is, of course, the conditions that they worked under many years ago. As I said, they've improved. But a very good friend of mine, a former secretary of the AWU, Wayne Hanson, would tell me a story, and he mentioned this story many a time. He was a young kid at school in Broken Hill. His father was a miner. He became a miner as well. They would hear the siren go, and the siren was for the change of shifts—7 am and 3.30 pm, I think, which was the afternoon shift, and then the 11.30 shift at night for the midnight shift.

But, if the siren went between those known hours, it meant that something had gone wrong in the mine. It would be shut down, and people would run home from school. The whole town would hear the siren, and dread would overcome the whole town because there'd obviously been either a dreadful accident—someone may have lost their life—or something terrible had happened in the mine for it to be shut down. This was a regular occurrence. He's relayed this story to me of, when he was in school, hearing that siren and thinking: 'Is that my father? Is that my dad or one of my classmates' parents that's been injured or even worse than that?'

So it is a challenging job. It's a dangerous job. Today, safety requirements are much better, and many people make a living working in the mining industries. They help power our economy. They keep our industries moving and shape our entire communities. The work is physically hard, mentally exhausting and absolutely essential. And, because they give so much, they deserve a system that protects them, supports them and honours the years of service they put in.

The Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 makes sure that miners receive the long service leave that they have earned, leave that many have been unable to access because of historic problems with how levies were paid or recorded. These issues go back many years, sometimes decades, and have left workers stuck in uncertainty, unsure whether their service would ever be recognised. Recent court cases helped clarify how the scheme should apply, and this bill steps in to fix the gaps so that workers can finally move forward and claim what is rightfully theirs.

It creates a pathway for employers with unpaid levies to come into the system, make voluntary arrangements and resolve the historical debts in a fair, equitable and workable way. Employers will be able to pay around 80 per cent of what is owed in instalments, and the remainder can be waived once they meet the requirements. This acknowledges the reality that some older records may be incomplete while still ensuring the scheme is properly funded and workers are not left behind. Importantly, the bill also restores the additional levy rate, a tool that helps ensure contributions are paid on time and strengthens the system's ability to hold employers accountable. This makes the portable long service leave scheme more reliable, more transparent and better equipped to protect miners' entitlements for the long term.

At its heart, this is about fairness. Miners don't ask for any special treatment. They don't ask for shortcuts. They simply ask that their years of service be respected and also recognised. This bill helps clear the way for exactly that by fixing these old problems, simplifying how levies are calculated and ensuring that miners can build the long service leave they deserve, no matter which part of the industry they've worked in or how often they've moved between employers. For those workers underground, the workers at the surface, the workers who have carried this industry on their backs, this is about dignity and justice for those workers. It's about giving people the certainty that they should have and should have always had. When someone gives years of their life to the job—their sweat, their strength and their time away from loved ones—the very least they deserve is the security that their service will be honoured. That's what this bill is about.

When we talk about dignity, when we speak about honouring the people who have given so much of their time to this industry, we must talk about long service leave, because that's what long service leave is. Long service leave isn't just a workplace entitlement; it's a recognition. It is respect. It is the industry's way of saying your years of hard work matter and you've earned time to now rest. This bill is about making sure that miners—the men and women who have spent decades underground, on the surface, on the machinery, at the plants on the mines—are finally connected to long service leave that is rightfully theirs.

For eligible workers in the black-coal mining industry, long service leave is meant to be portable. That means that your service should follow you no matter which mine you worked at, which contractor you were hired through or how often the industry changed around you. But, for too long, some employers disputed whether they were covered under this particular scheme. They argued over definitions. They debated eligibility. While those disputes dragged on, it was those workers who missed out, and it was those workers that suffered. Those workers kept on showing up to work—workers who kept putting their safety on the line and workers who kept this country's lights on. They were left unable to accrue their long service leave, unable to access it and unable to claim what they had spent many years earning. This bill works to finally right that wrong. It creates real incentives for employers to come into the Coal LSL scheme, comply with their obligations and provide the information needed so Coal LSL can accurately create or update service records. Without those records, workers cannot build their entitlements, and, without their entitlements, years of service risk being forgotten.

Under these changes, workers will no longer be punished because paperwork was lost or misplaced, because an employer disputed coverage years ago or because records older than seven years were never required to be kept. Where information is missing, reasonable assumptions can now be made, and those assumptions are assumptions that protect the worker rather than disadvantage them. This bill is fairness in action. This is a policy that's compassionate for those workers. This is recognising the reality of an industry where records don't always follow the worker but the worker's service should. No miner should ever reach the end of their career only to be told that the years they devoted to the industry—years, as I said, spent away from family, turning up and showing up every day, years spent in danger, years spent pushing through the fatigue, the hardship and the shift work—somehow didn't count. So this bill ensures that it does count—every shift, every week, every year and every sacrifice. It means workers can finally accrue and access their rightful long service leave not someday, not after years of legal battles, but as soon as possible.

And it restores something deeper than entitlements; it restores faith—faith that the system sees them, faith that the system values them and faith that the system will stand up for them. Miners have always stood up for Australia. Now, the system must stand up for them. This reform does not just affect one group of workers; it reaches across the entire industry. The truth is that we may never fully capture the number of people whose lives will be changed by these measures. We may never meet every miner, every contractor or every support worker whose entitlement will finally be restored. But we know this: the impact will be real, and it will be wide-reaching.

Across the black-coal mining industry, thousands of employees have fallen through those cracks not because they didn't work the hours and not because they didn't earn the service but because of longstanding disputes about whether certain roles were even covered under the scheme. We now have certainty with this bill. Whether they're maintenance crews, repair specialists, labour hire workers, shotfirers, emergency service teams, testing and inspection staff and certification providers—the many unseen hands that keep mines operating day and night and operating safely, smoothly and reliably, often without even receiving the recognition that they deserve—these workers have been the silent backbone of this sector, yet some have been left without that long service leave that they rightfully earned for their hours of work put into the mines. This bill begins to change that.

Coal LSL is already working with dozens of employers to review eligibility and gather the information needed to update the service records. For many workers this will be the very first time in years their dedication is properly recorded. It will be the first time their service is acknowledged and it will be the first time they can finally begin accruing the leave that they were always entitled to. Where records are missing, because they're old, incomplete, were never kept properly or have been mishandled or misplaced, the bill ensures workers are not punished for those gaps. Reasonable assumptions will be made, fairness will be applied and people can finally be connected with what they've earned.

No miner should lose an entitlement simply because a folder went missing or a company disputed its obligations. This is a good reform. It is about doing right by the people who did right by their industry. But fairness must also have a structure behind it, a system strong enough to protect workers not just today but for decades to come. That's why this bill also restores the additional levy, a key compliance tool designed to ensure employers pay their levies on time. We know that, for too long, this penalty has been tied to an outdated interest rate which the Reserve Bank no longer publishes, meaning it no longer discourages late payments the way it was meant to. Without timely payments, the system weakens and when the system weakens, workers suffer. By updating the additional levy to align with the current Reserve Bank cash rate, the bill ensures that compliance is meaningful again and not just symbolic. It sends a clear signal that long service leave is not optional, not negotiable and not something that can be delayed without consequence. When employers meet their obligation, the entire system grows stronger. When the system grows stronger, workers are finally protected.

These reforms work together towards a single powerful purpose—to ensure that every worker in the black-coal mining industry, no matter their role, no matter their employer and no matter their history, can access the long service leave they've earned with their time, their labour, their effort and their sacrifice for every shift, every year and every contribution. This is not just a policy; it is fairness and it is justice for those miners, those workers that work in the mining industry. It is respect for those workers who've carried this industry and contributed so much to Australia's prosperity. It is long overdue.

Debate adjourned.

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