Yesterday the voluntary administrators of Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd, announced they had notified the majority of the refinery’s workers that they would be sacked, effective 5pm today.
Queensland Nickel used to operate the Yabulu refinery. However, on Monday the owners of the refinery assets – QNI Resources and QNI Metals, which are both associated with parliamentarian Clive Palmer – appointed Queensland Nickel Sales Pty Ltd to take over.
That decision was made by QNI Resources and QNI Metals director Clive Mensink.
Due to that the administrators no longer have operational or management control of the refinery. Therefore they have dismissed the workers.
“Queensland Nickel Sales, the newly appointed manager of the refinery, may offer current employees of Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd, employment but the administrators are currently unaware of the terms of timing of those offers,” FTI Consulting said in a statement.
“The administrators have impressed on Queensland Nickel Sales Pty Ltd the urgency of the situation and the need to quickly resolve the ongoing employment of staff.
“At this time the administrators are uncertain as to the status of future employment offers by Queensland Nickel Sales Pty Ltd.
“The terminations of employment and uncertainty regarding the new offers is a deeply regrettable situation, although unavoidable given the administrators no longer have operational control of the refinery.”
When the appointment of Queensland Nickel Sales was made, Palmer, who is the head of QNS, said the company would offer all Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd workers employment on the same terms and conditions that they were on.
However, there is no mention of things such as long service leave and accrued leave. Those could well be lost in the transition.
Queensland Nickel Sales had hoped to keep the refinery operating. Australia’s Mining Monthly understands there have been some hiccups in getting ore from a recently arrived ship to the refinery because the transporter is refusing to do the work unless some of its debt with Queensland Nickel is paid.
When Queensland Nickel went into administration it had unsecured debts of more than $100 million. Of that $30.8 million is in worker entitlements, including $16 million owed to the 237 staff made redundant just before Queensland Nickel was put into administration.
Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt said the federal government needed to extend the eligibility of its Fair Entitlements Guarantee to cover workers out of a job due to “Clive Palmer’s corporate restructure”.
Pitt said if Palmer had rearranged the nickel refinery’s corporate structure because he wanted to see it keep operating, he needed to clarify the future of former employees now without jobs.
“Last month the Premier told Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that 237 QN employees sacked in January were not eligible for FEG because it applied only to businesses in liquidation,” he said.
“Now 550 workers have lost their jobs because of the arrangements of Mr Palmer’s companies managing and operating the Yabulu refinery.
“But under current rules they will not be eligible for FEG payments until the previous management of Queensland Nickel is liquidated.”
