Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak in support of the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I do so not only as a member in this place and the very proud member for Paterson but also as the proud daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter of coalminers and the proud friend, the proud aunt—someone who is well and truly still enmeshed among those who either used to work in the coal industry or still do.

I grew up in a household shaped by the rhythms of the coal industry, by shift work. My father worked dogwatch, which these days is known as night work, for the last 17 years of his career—17 continuous years of dogwatch. I remember seeing him come home just as I was about to go to school every morning. I can remember that a big deal in my house was when mum got an extra small washing machine to wash dad's overalls so she didn't have to clean out our normal machine after washing those clothes. Times have changed in the coalmining industry, and that is a good thing.

My father was a coalminer at Bloomfield colliery, and I'm proud to say that my grandfather worked there, too. To this very day, we still extract coal out of that mine, which is less than a kilometre from my house, where I live now. We've been doing so and sending it to Japan for 90 years. That's the depth and the breadth of coal and how much it means not only to my region and the people who extract it but also to our country and the revenue we gain from it. I want to thank each and every one of those workers who continues to extract coal from Bloomfield to this very day. It is an important part of our story.

Coalmining isn't just an industry in our region; it's actually part of the fabric of who we are—our identity. It's powered our nation, sustained regional economies like the Hunter and provided generations of working people with good incomes, with secure, skilled employment. And it will continue to be an integral part of the Hunter for many years to come. That's why it's so important that, when we say we back the coal mining industry, we mean we're backing its workers 100 per cent of the way. This bill is doing exactly that.

At its heart, this legislation is about fairness. It's about making sure that workers in the coalmining industry can access long service leave entitlements that they've lawfully earned—entitlements that recognise the physical demands, the risk, the long-term commitment required in this industry and, as was just pointed out by the member for Riverina, also the changing nature of work in the industry. In coal in the Hunter, we're not so much FIFO workers as in fly-in fly-out. People drive long hours on top of a 12-hour shift in our region. Sometimes they'll drive up to two hours to get to work, work for 12 hours and then drive home again. It's a very long day. That's why these people need to be paid fairly and properly.

Eligible workers in the coal industry are entitled to portable long service leave under the coal long service leave scheme. That has been the law for decades. But the reality is that for too long some workers have been unable to accrue or access those entitlements not because they were ineligible but because of prolonged disputes about employer coverage under the scheme. Over many years, a number of employers have disputed whether they employed eligible workers in the coalmining industry. These disputes had very real consequences. They have left workers without service records in many cases, they have prevented accrual of entitlements and in some cases they have meant that workers who dedicated years of their life to the industry walked away without the long service leave they were, in fact, entitled to. That's just not acceptable.

I want to share an example from my electorate of Paterson. Stuart, from Maitland, spent nearly seven years working almost entirely on coalmine sites while employed by a contractor. About 90 per cent of his time was on coalmines. There was no question he was working in the mining industry, but, because of the way the law operated at the time, his employer was able to avoid paying the black coal long service leave scheme. In effect, it was a loophole and one that left workers like Stuart carrying the cost. Eventually, workers challenged it. The matter went through a major dispute and was ultimately recognised but only after a significant fight—and with the support of the Mining and Energy Union, I might add.

Stuart lodged a claim for his long service leave. He had to gather years of evidence—site login records, employment documents and detailed work histories—just to have his service recognised. When his claim was finally approved, his accrued long service leave increased from roughly 300 hours to around 900 hours. He told me it was about fairness. He was working side by side with employees directly engaged by the mine. We refer to those people as the 'permanent shirts' as opposed to the contractors. He was doing the same job on the same crew day after day, sometimes night after night. They were accruing 13 weeks after eight years. He was accruing far less. It's simply not right.

Stuart now has two young children and, like many long-term miners, he hopes one day to use his accrued leave to either spend extended time with his family or as a bridge into retirement. As he said, if you're working on a coal mine, you should clearly be covered. It shouldn't depend on what logo appears on your payslip or your shirt. And that's precisely what this bill seeks to address.

This bill is designed to fix the problem at its source. It incentivises major employer compliance with the coal long service leave scheme with clear and practical focus on connecting workers to their full long service leave entitlements. Importantly, where records are missing—and there will be people listening to this wondering about their records—because records that are more than seven years old sometimes are not kept, they are no longer required to be kept. This bill allows for reasonable assumptions to be made. This is a critical reform. It ensures that workers are not denied their entitlements simply because the historical records are incomplete, unavailable or have been discarded. In other words, this bill places the focus where it belongs: on the worker, not on the paperwork or on the gaps that no longer serve any legitimate purpose.

The benefits of this bill will be felt across a wide range of employees in the coalmining industry. At this stage, it's difficult to quantify the precise number of workers who will benefit, as employers will need to submit service records and eligible wage data. But what we do know is that the Coal Long Service Leave is actively engaging with dozens of employers to assess eligibility. These employers operate across a broad range of activities within the industry, including maintenance and repair services, labour-hire firms supplying maintenance and repair workers, shotfirer employers, emergency service providers and businesses conducting testing, inspection and certification. This really matters, because the modern coalmining workforce is very diverse. It extends well beyond the mine gate, and it includes thousands of skilled workers whose labour is essential to the safe and efficient operation of the industry.

This bill also recognises the realities facing employers, particularly in the light of recent legal activity. Findings in the Hitachi and Orica cases have clarified coverage for many employers in the coalmining industry. As a result, some employers have now accrued substantial historical levy debts, often going back many years. This legislation does not ignore that reality. Instead, it introduces practical, sensible measures to support compliance while easing the financial and administrative burden on employers. We can't forget that these employers need to generate a revenue too. We should never forget that. Under this bill, employers will be able to repay the historical levy debts in a predictable and manageable way over a six-year period. This gives businesses certainty, stability and time to plan, while ensuring that the scheme receives the funds needed to support workers' entitlements. It is a win-win.

This bill also introduces a 20 per cent debt waiver for employers who opt into the payment arrangement scheme. We want to reward these proactive employers who want to do the right thing. We're going to reward them with a 20 per cent debt waiver. Particularly for businesses with significant levy liabilities, it encourages participation rather than avoidance. In addition, where employers have already paid long-service leave entitlements directly to employees upon cessation of employment, those amounts can be deducted from their historical debt. This avoids double payment and recognises good-faith actions already taken by employers. I want to thank the employers who do the right thing for that. It is very important. Importantly, participation in the payment arrangement scheme is entirely voluntary. Employers can choose the approach that best suits their circumstances, and, if an employer chooses not to opt in, employees still retain the ability to pursue queries about their eligibility for the scheme through existing mechanisms.

The bill also provides a time limited opportunity for employers to access a more streamlined onboarding pathway, one that's expected to be significantly faster than the current bespoke onboarding process, which can take up to 12-to-18 months. The streamlined pathway includes simplified wage calculations, reducing the need to recreate historical payroll slips, which can be a bit of a nightmare. It allows for reasonable assumptions to address unavoidable historical data gaps, and it enables payment arrangements to progress without needing to resolve every historical data issue up front, ensuring that debt repayment and worker connection to entitlements are not unnecessarily delayed.

Finally, this bill strengthens compliance with the Coal Long Service Leave scheme by addressing a technical defect related to the additional levy applied to late payments. The additional levy exists to encourage employers to pay their levies on time. However, it's currently calculated using a rate that's no longer published by the Reserve Bank of Australia. As a result, it doesn't effectively deter late payments and doesn't align with the scheme's original intent. This bill that we're moving in the House today fixes that defect by tying the additional levy to the Reserve Bank of Australia's cash rate. This restores the integrity of the compliance mechanism and supports timely payments into the scheme, ultimately benefiting workers and allowing employers to know where they stand in relation to the RBA cash rate.

This bill is grounded in fairness, practicality and respect for working people and those who employ them. It acknowledges the central role of coalmining regions like mine, the mighty Hunter. It supports employers to do the right thing. Most importantly, it ensures that workers, the men and women who have given so much to this industry and our country, can access the long service leave entitlements that they've earned. As the daughter of a coalminer and as a proud representative of the Hunter, I really want to commend this bill to the House, and I want to thank those people who get up early in the morning, go to work and don't go to bed until very late or work through the night. It is a hard job in the coal industry. No-one denies how hard it is. It's still full of risk, but it's also full of good reward, and it's something that each one of us in this place can feel proud of, not only because of the employment it provides the people of Australia but because of the wealth that it provides our nation as well. I commend the bill to the House.

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