Former employees of failed North Queensland miner Aurora Metals are still waiting for outstanding superannuation payments almost three years after the company entered voluntary administration.

Aurora Metals and 11 related entities entered voluntary administration in June 2023, owing creditors more than $170 million. KordaMentha was appointed administrator before the group later moved into liquidation.

Main image: King Vol Mine

The Queensland Government is managing the Mount Garnet site under the Abandoned Mine Lands Program after associated mining leases were disclaimed in March 2024.

A buyer

In March this year, mortgagee in possession Mt Garnet Mineral Finance sold a number of former Auctus Resources permits to Nugget Bucket, a wholly owned subsidiary of Legacy Mines.

Those permits included tenures associated with the Mungana and King Vol mines in North Queensland.

The department said it was continuing to work with Nugget Bucket on relevant tenure matters, including renewal applications under assessment. Remaining permits associated with Aurora Metals remain under mortgagee in possession.

Related: Tartana looks to breathe new life into Aurora assets

Former underground loader operator Dennis Stylianou, one of the last two employees on site, said Aurora collapsed owing more than 120 workers more than $3.2 million in superannuation.

Mr Stylianou said he was personally owed about $14,500.

He said superannuation contributions were recorded on payslips for almost two years but were not deposited into workers’ accounts.

“The super wasn’t being paid,” he said. “On our wages slip it said, for example, I got $500 into my super on our wages and then when you looked in your super account, it read zero.

“The consensus was, where’s our super? Why isn’t it being paid? Then some people were paid a dollar. Some people were paid 20 cents and some people were paid nothing.

“We said, ‘How come we’re not getting paid?’ And the excuse was that he paid quarterly. And when quarterly time came around, we never got no super. He just never paid it.”

Mr Stylianou said he understood the ATO was working through the outstanding superannuation claims.

“The ATO is working on it apparently. They red-flagged it because there was many complaints.

“You can imagine people wanting their money. They earned it and so they’re trying to get their money, but we know that whoever buys the mine it is stated they have to pay the previous employees their unpaid super.

“I’m pretty excited about that (new owners) because we’re getting a step closer to getting our money. I approached the administrators, KordMentha, and they said, ‘We don’t know anything about it.’”

The Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Manufacturing and Regional and Rural Development said questions about company debts, employee entitlements, unpaid superannuation and creditor claims were matters for the relevant administrators, liquidators, receivers, mortgagee in possession or the Australian Taxation Office.

Other entitlements recovered 

Some workers were also owed more than three months’ wages after Aurora’s collapse.

About $4.8 million was recovered through the Federal Government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee Scheme after advocacy from Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter.

Mr Stylianou credited Mr Katter with helping workers receive those payments.

“When Bob Katter says he’ll do something, he’ll do it. Tony Burke was Minister for Employment at that time. And he said, ‘I want you to use your special powers to pay these people, which we are on the bottom of entitlements.’

“There was 8,400 entitlements. We were sitting at the bottom of that list and thank God Bob got that moved to the top of the list.

“We got paid after about 14 to 15 months. As soon as the Federal Government people, fair work guarantee entitlements, got a hold of paperwork and everything from the administrators, we got paid.”

Mr Stylianou said conditions, machinery and morale deteriorated before Ergon turned off power to the site.

Despite Aurora’s failure, he said the operation still had a future.

“They upgraded the mill spending $95 million to make it state-of-the-art, which is the attraction for anyone who wants to buy the mine and all the leases there. So there is ore there to be mined, but it was just poorly run.”

Former Aurora Metals managing director Ralph De Lacey was found guilty in Cairns Magistrates Court earlier this year of environmental offences linked to tailings storage requirements at the Mount Garnet mine, 160km south-west of Cairns, before Aurora went out of business in 2023.