Bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars are about to land in the bank accounts of workers at Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore mine, under one of the most generous resources industry profit-sharing schemes in the world.
Some 2800 workers at Roy Hill are eligible for bonuses paid on December 7 to mark the birthday of Mrs Rinehart’s late mother Hope Rinehart, nee Nicholas.
The payment of the bonuses – which can be worth upwards of $40,000 to Roy Hill’s higher paid workers – is set to be followed within days by a Christmas prize giveaway for employees across businesses owned by Mrs Rinehart’s private company, Hancock Prospecting.
In recent years, Australia’s richest person handed out multiple prizes of $100,000 to lucky workers whose names are plucked out at random as part of the Christmas giveaway.
Roy Hill recently reported a net profit after tax of $3.23bn for 2023-24, compared to $2.7bn last year, putting the workforce in line for a bigger bonus boost heading into Christmas.
The WA miner shipped 64 million tonnes of iron ore from Port Hedland, up slightly from 63.3 million tonnes in 2022-23, and its owners – Hancock Prospecting (70 per cent), Marubeni (15 per cent), POSCO (12.5 per cent) and China Steel Corporation (2.5 per cent) – shared a $4bn dividend pool.
Mrs Rinehart has keep her word in paying out bonuses estimated to total more than $350m to Roy Hill workers every year since 2018, on top of some of the highest wages in Australia.
The Hancock Prospecting executive chairman first mentioned her intention to share profits from Roy Hill with workers during a speech at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011 while wading through government red and green tape in her fight to bring Roy Hill to life.
The mine opened in 2015, made enough after five years in operations to pay down a $10bn debt, and declared a maiden dividend of $475m in 2020.
Roy Hill made history as the first mega project in the male-dominated mining sector to be financed, built and run by a woman, and women now make up about 25 per cent of the workforce.
Mrs Rinehart and Roy Hill declined to comment on what is known as the “chairman’s profit scheme” or the Christmas prize draw.
Payments under the profit-sharing scheme can represent 30 per cent of base wages and, when introduced, were linked to the mine hitting costs and production and safety targets.
It is understood similar incentives and profit-sharing schemes apply to other businesses in the Hancock stable but are more discretionary.
The day after the bonuses were paid in 2022, Mrs Rinehart gave away 10 prizes of $100,000 at the Roy Hill Christmas party.
The Christmas prize draw has become an annual event across the Hancock business empire with scores of $100,000 prizes handed out.
Mrs Rinehart has also given away millions of dollars to workers in annual prize draws on February 9 to mark her birthday.
