Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take this opportunity to raise what I think are some very serious concerns about the conduct of a Hunter based mining company, Yancoal Australia. I am concerned that they are setting up structures with the sole intention of ripping off and taking advantage of their own workers. I am concerned that they are gaming the system and treating their staff poorly. Frankly, it raises some serious concerns about what the Senate needs to do and what the parliament needs to do about this kind of behaviour.

The background is that, in November 2015, Yancoal Australia Ltd set up a shelf company, which they named Yancoal Mining Services, but they did not advise any of their staff of this new company. It is something they kept completely secret. Two months later, on 14 January 2016, they told staff about the secret shelf company and told them they had 10 business days to move to the new company on lesser conditions or be sacked. By the way, they did not transfer any of their actual assets to this new company except for the mining equipment. Yancoal operate the three affected Hunter Valley, New South Wales mines: Abel, Austar and Ashton.

This new entity they have created will employ 181 staff only—supervisory, technical, engineering and administrative employees, not the production workers themselves. Let us be clear. These are workers who stuck by this company, who did not go out west for much bigger pay and different opportunities during the mining boom a decade ago and who stayed—again, we are not going to have time to talk about this tonight—after the fatalities that occurred in 2014. After years of making massive profits, the second that Yancoal hit any type of international and financial difficulty, they planned to rip off their own workers.

As part of the creation of this new shelf company, they have advised their 181 staff that as a condition of their employment they must transfer onto new employment contracts with lesser conditions or they will be sacked without retrenchment pay. Redundancy pay, accident pay and personal leave payouts are some of the entitlements that are going to be affected.

I think this raises some very serious questions about the conduct of Yancoal and some broader questions about the legislative framework we are currently operating in. The current Fair Work Act mandates that awards and agreements transfer to new companies but is silent on safety net contracts. Yancoal are exploiting this loophole in current business laws.

There are some questions we need to ask. How can a foreign company such as Yancoal Australia Ltd create a new company and, as a condition of employment, require workers to transfer to that company on lesser conditions or they risk being sacked without retrenchment pay? Why is there no barrier in the Fair Work Act to prevent this from occurring? What protections are there for workers when an employer makes it a condition of ongoing employment that they transfer to a new company with reduced conditions and no guaranteed assets backing their entitlements? How can phoenix companies be set up without first guaranteeing workers' conditions and guaranteeing assets to back those conditions? Why is the government considering enterprise contracts when the Yancoal example highlights the problems that can already occur when employees are unilaterally issued new contracts without any form of regulation or safeguards?

This is appalling behaviour. This is exploitation. This is taking advantage of hardworking Australians, and their families, who have done nothing but stand by this company. It is behaviour that is unacceptable. I believe Yancoal has a responsibility to its employees and to the Hunter community. It is not good enough for a company that has made the massive profits that Yancoal has made over the past years through Australian resources, the second things get a little bit tough, the second it hits any kind of hardship, to cut workers loose and cut the community loose. I think this is the type of behaviour we have a responsibility to protect against. It is the type of exploitation that we have a responsibility to act against.

The board of directors of Yancoal need to be held to account. They need to answer some serious questions. I note that there are two people on the board I am familiar with. Dr Geoff Raby, a former Australian Ambassador to China, sits on the board. Also, a Vincent O'Rourke is a director of Yancoal. According to the Yancoal website, he is chair of Queensland's Workplace Health and Safety Board, which is a government board, but I believe he may no longer hold that position. The board needs to be held to account. The company needs to be held to account.

It is simply not good enough that 181 professional staff are going to be treated in this way, exploited in this way, used and spat out in this way, and that the Australian parliament stays silent. This is not just about Yancoal, though Yancoal's behaviour is appalling. This is about the laws, the structures and the system that allow this to happen. When money was being made in the good times—during the mining boom, when the price of coal was as high as it was—there were no complaints from Yancoal. But, the second things get a little bit tough, it is cutting its costs, but ripping off its workers to do it is not the way forward.

This is an important issue. This is an issue I intend to pursue. I put Yancoal on notice: you are not going to get away with this behaviour.