Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today in support of the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I imagine most of us take it for granted when we can just flick a switch and the lights are on, the kettle boils, the fridge is cold, the oven is warm and we can sit back and enjoy the latest bingeworthy show on Netflix. But, of course, none of this would be possible without the people who dedicate their working lives to supplying the resources we need for energy supply, and I'm talking about our mining workforce in particular.

My electorate of Shortland straddles the Lake Macquarie and the Central Coast, and these are critical centres for Australia's coalmining industry and home to thousands of coalminers. These hardworking people are entitled to the long service leave that has accrued during their employment. This is regardless of whether they have worked for one or multiple employers. They deserve to have their continuity of service recognised without penalty. Workers in the black-coal mining industry hold transferable skills, and they can and will move their employment to where there is demand. That is why it makes sense, like certain other industries, that their long service leave is portable, as is the case for building and construction, community services and contract cleaning. The coal long service leave scheme is funded by a levy on employers and ensures workers keep their entitlements even if they change employers. It's part of a dense architecture of support for the coalmining industry that's grown up organically and through struggle from workers and their representatives over decades.

It's an industry that is incredibly dangerous and risky. Every year I attend the miners' memorial at Aberdare or Cessnock, where there are listed the names of the more than 1,800 men, women, and children as young as eight, who have died in our coalmines, supplying energy to our country. Miners make enormous sacrifices in a very risky industry. Their struggle has been, in part, for safe workplaces but also for the architecture that goes around that, in a truly tripartite way. Whether it's the mining rescue service, whether it's long service leave, whether it's the broader safety scheme or the superannuation, this is an industry where it's genuinely tripartite—where workers and their representatives, the unions, and good employers strive together to have world's-best regulation. And this legislation goes towards that.

There are impediments to the success of the current scheme for black-coal industry workers. Firstly, there's the issue of historical levies owed by employers. This has meant that employees have been unable to accrue and access long service leave entitlements. Secondly, the additional levy employers must pay on late levy payments needs to change to meet current cash rates, to encourage employers to pay on time. This bill will ensure more Australian workers can access their lawful long service leave entitlements. This bill incentivises employers to comply with the coal long service leave scheme. It will ensure workers in the black-coal mining industry can be more certain of their financial future. And, ultimately, this is about the Albanese Labor government standing up for workers' entitlements.

Our miners deserve this certainty, particularly at a time when some mines are closing and many hardworking Australians are struggling with the cost of living. This is why it makes sense that this government is amending existing legislation to remove the current barriers to some eligible workers being able to accrue and access their long service leave entitlements.

In my great electorate of Shortland, I'm no stranger to the mining industry, and thousands of my constituents have spent their lives employed at the local collieries. I'm incredibly proud of that. In fact, my electorate is named after Lieutenant John Shortland from the First Fleet, who was the first European to discover coal in Australia, in 1797. Just a short drive from my electorate office sits the Chain Valley Colliery, on the southern end of Lake Macquarie. This colliery operates as part of an integrated mining operation that includes the smaller Mannering Colliery, just a few minutes down the road, and supplies the Vales Point Power Station. Underground mining operations began in 1962, with thermal coal extracted from the Wallarah, Great Northern and Fassifern seams over this period. For decades, miners have combined bord-and-pillar and miniwall mining to supply high quality thermal coal, primarily to the nearby Vales Point Power Station.

At its peak employment period in the mid-1980s, Chain Valley Colliery boasted a workforce of around 380 personnel. These employees, a skilled workforce of miners, engineers and administrative staff, have played, and continue to play, a vital role in supporting the energy supply in our region. And they're just some of the over 1,000 coalminers who work in my region, who live in my electorate. They'll cross Five Islands Bridge to work in the coalmines on the other side of the lake or go up the valley to work in the mines up the Hunter Valley. I'm incredibly grateful for the sacrifice they make, and I honour their sacrifice and the sacrifice of the tens of thousands of retired coalminers who have graced my region.

I hope this legislation sends the clear message to workers like those at the Chain Valley Colliery that the Albanese Labor government values their vital contribution and has their back. It's the right thing to do, and we know how much it will mean to miners and mining families, not only in my electorate but right across the country.

We know there have been cases of employers who have disputed whether some workers have coverage under the coal long service leave scheme, and this has caused considerable stress and anxiety amongst coalminers and their families—not knowing whether they were able to accrue or even access their entitlements and not knowing if there was anything they could do about it. So, as I said, under this bill, employers will be incentivised to comply with the coal long service leave scheme. Employers will be able to repay their debts over a period of six years, making debt management more predictable and manageable. The 20 per cent debt waiver will incentivise participation in the payment arrangement scheme by supporting employers with significant levy liabilities.

We're streamlining the onboarding pathway for employers who opt in to the payments arrangement scheme. Employers will provide Coal Long Service Leave—the organisation—with information necessary to create new or updated service records for workers coming into the scheme. Ordinarily, this information would include service records and wage data. But what about when someone's records are missing? What happens then? The good thing about this bill is that it will allow for reasonable assumptions to be made about a worker's service so they don't miss out. For example, there is no requirement that employers hold service records that are more than seven years old. In this case, a reasonable assumption of what an employee is entitled to could be made. This is designed to ensure that the loss of historical records or incomplete historical records aren't a barrier to access, that an eligible worker is not excluded from their full entitlement because their employer has failed to do the right thing or accidents have happened.

I understand that Coal Long Service Leave—the organisation—is already working with dozens of employers to assess eligibility for the scheme. These are employers that undertake a broad range of activities across the mining industry. We're talking about maintenance and repair services, labour hire firms that supply maintenance-and-repair labour, shot firer employers, emergency service providers and businesses that conduct testing, inspection and certification of mining operations. It is due to the findings of the relevant Hitachi and Orica cases that the government has moved swiftly to protect the entitlements of mining industry workers. With the clarity gained from these legal proceedings, we can move ahead with this important legislation, and this bill ensures eligible workers get their full entitlements, some dating back 15 years.

The current scheme was hard won by unionist coalminers more than 70 years ago, making it one of the first portable long service leave schemes for blue-collar workers anywhere in the world. It was founded based on their struggle and their sacrifice, and now we're refining it to make it even stronger. In a media release from the Mining and Energy Union on 27 November last year welcoming the legislation, general secretary Grahame Kelly said:

Legislation introduced to Parliament today strengthens the Coal Long Service Leave Scheme and ensures coal workers get the money they are owed.

He said it was a 'long-overdue fix that puts workers first', and I wholeheartedly agree.

This bill is another example of how the Albanese Labor government is standing up for our miners, just like we did before the federal election on 25 May, which saw Labor retain government with the start of our same job, same pay changes. This began on 1 November 2024, and it was a fantastic initiative for Aussie workers, particularly coalminers. Same job, same pay has been a game changer. I remember when the former minister for employment and workplace relations Murray Watt joined me in Newcastle just two months after same job, same pay came into force. Just in that short time, just in the first two months of operation, 120 New South Wales mineworkers saw their wages grow by up to $35,000, and, at the same time, another 1,500 New South Wales coalminers had applications in for their wage rises.

This pay rise was long overdue, because coalminers doing the same job should get paid the same amount of money.

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