MinRes’s ‘safe work’ sham show; Heydon hiding in plain sight

Former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop has taken on a role as strategic adviser for Mineral Resource.

Billionaire mining buffoon Chris Ellison, of Mineral Resources, has been beating his chest for years about enticing more women to work at the company – even as his most senior female hires have staged a run for the exits.

In May, Ellison stood before a Macquarie conference and said with a straight face that he was creating a “safer work environment” for women – apparently by building a daycare centre.

In Ellison’s mind this was a stroke of genius, and so too was paying Julie Bishop a pile of money to sashay through the company’s Walters Drive headquarters.

That was for a glossy induction video to showcase what MinRes officials described as the “health and wellbeing of our people”. In reality, they couldn’t give a damn.

Julie Bishop, left, in a scene from the Mineral Resource promotional video.

No one of sound mind would take Ellison’s guff on workplace reform seriously, especially when MinRes has a demonstrably appalling track record of dealing with alleged workplace harassment.

Margin Call has learned that a top MinRes lawyer was able to resign last year rather than face potential termination after being informed of an in-house HR investigation into allegations surrounding his conduct.

Led by Andrea Chapman, MinRes’s EGM People, we’ve established that numerous women co-operated with the inquiry and provided corroborating information spanning years of alleged harassment and grossly unprofessional behaviour.

Mineral Resources boss Chris Ellison.

Margin Call understands that upon being presented with the allegations, the MinRes lawyer requested additional time to ­respond and resigned soon after, thus circumventing the investigation and any professional ­repercussions. And the investigation itself? It seemed to collapse once he was gone.

Hardly the sort of fair process one would expect from a mining company intent on creating a “safer work environment” for women, as Ellison insisted.

His response to this sordid matter was apparently to fly into a rage and allegedly instruct those privy to “just get rid of him”.

Did MinRes deign to conduct a welfare check on the complainants? Nope. Nor did it bother to provide an update on the investigation or its outcome.

Was there even a base level of care for women’s safety in the workplace? You guessed it.

And, of course, MinRes sees no problem with any of this. “While we are unable to comment on individual matters due to confidentiality, MinRes takes all allegations of misconduct very seriously,” a spokesman said, pointing to its reporting channels, an independent whistleblowing service and, as always, a training module.

“We are committed to a safe reporting culture through our Safe and Respectful Behaviours training programs and Speak Up awareness campaign.”

Meaningless, tokenistic rubbish, no different to Ellison’s pronouncements on the subject.

Hiding in plain sight

An unexpected sighting at Tuesday’s packed Martin Place rally in Sydney. Thousands had gathered to protest on behalf of the CFMEU, whose construction division is being forced into administration.

Who was hiding in plain sight?

Former High Court justice Dyson Heydon, as he slunk from his chambers nearby.

Nobody seemed to recognise him, either, which is fortunate for Heydon when one considers his leading role in the Abbott government’s trade union royal commission.

It was the CFMEU that shook its fist hardest when Heydon was found in 2020 to have sexually harassed six of his former associates, resulting in a historic settlement from the commonwealth two years later.

“Australian taxpayers paid for Dyson Heydon’s hatchet job on unions and workers, now we are paying his victims when he should be personally footing the bill,” it said.

Woodside’s woes

Greens to the left, farmers to the right – Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill is in the middle of an awkward stoush over the gas exporter’s carbon reduction methods.

It’s being accused of pushing up farm prices across WA’s Wheatbelt region, according to WA Farmers Federation boss Trevor Whittington, in a move that’s said to be forcing farmers off their land to burnish the gas major’s green credentials.

Or so Whittington told members in a stinging appraisal of Woodside, which is hoping to replant native bush to snaffle the resulting carbon credits. It’s quietly bought nearly 30,000 hectares of arable land by outbidding hapless locals who also want the properties. To claim the full carbon credits, Woodside needs to lock up the land with 100-year caveats, preventing its return to ag-use.

Woodside Energy chief Meg O'Neill. Picture: Nikki Short

And that matters in regional communities, where mere talk of splitting up the family farm is the easiest path to shouting matches at Christmas. An easy way to avoid the discussion is to buy more land as the neighbours move out, and that’s getting harder with the arrival of Woodside and its oversized cheque book. On Tuesday it declared a $2.4bn half-year profit and shovelled a lazy $1.9bn back to shareholders.

Margin Call hears it’s even about to drop another lazy $32m on a collection of farms owned by Macquarie in the northern Wheatbelt. And while Woodside says it only buys “unproductive” land, Whittington reckons that makes no sense.

“It can’t be that unproductive if Woodside has paid $1000, $2000, $3000, or $4000 per acre. The market has placed a value on that land based on its productive potential and even the most unproductive hectares can generate a return.”

If you think outrage is confined to WA, think again. Woodside is already looking further afield for carbon-farming land, including in southern NSW, where Woodside spent $23.2m in July – a “premium price”, according to locals – for about 4300 hectares of grazing space.

Teal’s true colours

Teal MP Monique Ryan isn’t a fan of name-calling, or so she made out on Twitter.

Per a post she uploaded on Monday afternoon: “Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley are good at calling people names ... not so good at coming up with policies for how to address the cost-of-living crisis and housing affordability and availability. Australia deserves better than their unrelenting negativity.”

A Facebook post, since deleted, by “insult-averse” Teal MP Monique Ryan.

Negativity? That’s rich coming from Ryan, who comprehensively scrubbed her Facebook account after being elected to parliament – and for good reason: too many of her posts involved sniping and acid-flinging at politicians she didn’t like, namely Peter Dutton, whom she enjoyed calling “potatohead”.

This would include one of Ryan’s posts from August 2018, when Dutton was the immigration minister and counting numbers to spill the leadership from Malcolm Turnbull.

“Toxic potatohead,” Ryan posted, with a picture of mashed potatoes. The caption said: “Peter Dutton reveals his softer side.” So Ryan doesn’t mind a little bit of name-calling, but only when she’s flinging the barb. And, as we expected, she declined to comment.