{"id":595390,"date":"2026-04-09T09:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:54:10","slug":"high-court-rejects-bhps-attempt-to-appeal-same-job-same-pay-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595390\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court rejects BHP’s attempt to appeal Same Job Same Pay order"},"content":{"rendered":"

The High Court of Australia has rejected an appeal from mining giant BHP to overturn a Same Job Same Pay ruling at three of its largest Queensland coal mines.<\/p>\n

The ruling focused on labour hire workers employed by Operations Services (OS) at BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s (BMA) Goonyella Riverside, Saraji and Peak Downs mine sites in the Bowen Basin.<\/p>\n

The Fair Work Commission originally ruled<\/a> workers with OS, a subsidiary of BHP, were entitled to the same pay as their directly employed counterparts, which was later upheld by the Federal Court.<\/p>\n

BMA has previously said in a statement that it had paid the more than 2,000 OS mineworkers affected by the ruling increased wages while the matter progressed through the courts.<\/p>\n

The Mining and Energy Union said the ruling would mean pay rises of between $20,000 and $30,000.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

BHP owns five mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, three of which are covered by this Same Job Same Pay order. (ABC Tropical North: Melissa Maddison)<\/p>\n

In a decision published on Thursday, the High Court ruled BHP’s proposed appeal of the Federal Court decision had “insufficient prospects of success” and refused “special leave”.<\/p>\n

The union’s general vice-president, Stephen Smyth, said the decision marked the end of the road of BHP’s fight against the Same Job Same Pay regime.<\/p>\n

“BHP were the last ones holding out,” he said.<\/p>\n

“These workers have worked side by side with full-time employees on the same shifts and the same tasks.”<\/p>\n

He said while the OS arrangement was unique to Queensland, the High Court decision did set up “interesting applications” at other mines in New South Wales and Queensland.<\/p>\n

\"Steven<\/p>\n

Stephen Smyth says BHP fought the order at every step. (ABC News: Katherine Gregory)<\/p>\n

“This will make it easier for us, our members and others at mine sites to get other applications up,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Australian Resources and Energy Association has previously estimated the ruling would cost BHP around $1.3 billion a year.<\/p>\n

BHP was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

In previous statements, a spokesperson for the company said it was “concerned” other contractor businesses would be “captured by Same Job Same Pay orders”, which would act as a “drag on productivity”.<\/p>\n

The company had previously maintained OS was a “mining services provider”, which are exempt from the orders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court of Australia has rejected an appeal from mining giant BHP to overturn a Same Job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[290651,64,63,6266,290649,99,69,27771,249306,290648,290650],"class_list":{"0":"post-595390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-areea","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bhp","12":"tag-bhp-os","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-federal-government","15":"tag-mining-and-energy-union","16":"tag-os","17":"tag-same-job-same-pay","18":"tag-stephen-smythe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}