Byrnecut boss lashes Same Job, Same Pay

The federal government’s proposed Same Job Same Pay legislation is a reflection of policy makers not living “in the real world”, according to Byrnecut Group executive director Steve Coughlan.

Speaking at a WA Mining Club lunch in Perth today, Mr Coughlan was scathing of the government bureaucracy he said was standing in the way of progress for miners and mining service companies.

He was particularly critical of Same Job, Same Pay (SJSP), which drew the ire of BHP this week when the big miner estimated the proposed legislation in its current form would cost it $1.3 billion in Australian wages per year.

Mr Byrnecut labelled SJSP “ridiculous” and labelled Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “sheltered”.

“Fair dinkum, get out in the real world,” he said.

SJSP legislation is designed to ensure labour hire workers are paid the same as direct employees of a business for doing the same work. Mr Coughlan said a footballer playing for the Eagles was not guaranteed the same amount of money as the other players for being able to kick a football the same distance.

“It doesn’t work like that, the world doesn’t work like that,” he said.

“If you split all the money around to everyone today, in 20 years’ time, it’d end up back with the people who knew what they were doing.”

Mr Coughlan, who heads the second-largest mining service company in the state according to Data & Insights, said the federal government was also blocking progress in the country through red and green tape.

“There’s a lot of talk about value-adding and upstreaming minerals as opposed to shipping concentrates offshore,” he said.

“The difficulty is the timeline and cost of the multi-government bureaucratic process and blockers to achieving this in a timely manner.”

He pointed to the discovery of the Lunnon Shoot by drillers at Lake Lefroy in 1966, which by 1972 had spawned Western Australia’s nickel industry, as an example of what could once be achieved.

“The town of East Kambalda was designed, approved and built,” Mr Coughlan said.

“A nickel concentrator was designed, approved and commissioned in Kambalda. A nickel smelter was designed, built and commissioned near Kalgoorlie. A nickel refinery was designed built and commissioned at Kwinana.

“You cannot imagine that happening these days. If you did it in 20 [years] you’d probably be happy.”

Mr Coughlan said multiple governments had let processes get more complicated over time and called for a review of the overall system.

“Can there please be some reflection and review on how we have managed to make it so difficult,” he said.

“Just put it on a boat. That’s what we do.”

The Byrnecut chief, whose operations span multiple continents, also lamented the flexibility of migration laws that meant the company was unable to fly in workers it had trained overseas to work on projects locally.

“The shortage of labour across the spectrum in Australia and in WA, but specifically in our space,” Mr Coughlan said.

“The government must address the expensive, complicated, long-winded and bureaucratic visa process. Why can we not readily FIFO the highly trained international people we have trained overseas to enter Australia and go onto minesites, maybe longer rosters, like the Australians do?

“You don’t need housing, but it’s so complicated, it costs so much money. It’s too hard.”