Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a proud supporter of Australian mining. By that I mean I support the hardworking men and women working in our mine sites. They work in remote, difficult and dangerous environments. They spend weeks at a time away from their homes and families and work long shifts. They are often working in an environment with unacceptably high rates of sexual harassment, injury and exploitation. For that, they deserve our admiration and respect. Instead what they get is BHP and others outsourcing their work, sometimes to companies they have set up themselves, and paying 40 or 50 per cent less than the agreed rate. That's what 'same job, same pay' intends to stop. If you care about miners you support 'same job, same pay'. Or, if you're like Tania Constable and the Minerals Council, you look at mineworkers like a never-ending cash cow. Rather than run a scare campaign, Ms Constable should come out and say what she really means. What Ms Constable really does mean is that BHP, which pays her massive wages out of its $30 billion profit, should be able to continue to rip off workers. Ms Constable wants to take money out of mineworkers' pockets, away from their families and their communities, and shove it into the bulging pockets of BHP's executives and shareholders. These companies, which dodge billions of tax every year, blow up sacred Indigenous sites for a buck and are among the biggest wage thieves in Australia, don't want to give their workers their fair day's pay. And to that I say: same job, same pay.