Gina Rinehart has secured a $7.9 billion funding deal for her Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia.
The deal, signed in Singapore last night, will see a group of lenders – including the National Australia Bank, ANZ, Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank – contribute to the $11 billion project. Commercial banks from Japan, Korea, China, Europe and Singapore were also part of the deal.
The Roy Hill mine is set to become Australia’s fourth-biggest iron ore producer, with the aim of producing 55 million tonnes of iron ore annually as of next year. More than 2000 people have been employed to construct the mine.
The operators of a Melbourne migration agency have been fined $140,790 for underpaying five young Chinese immigrant workers more than $76,000.
The owner-operator of the Australian Chinese Centre for International Education, Liu Ming Pan, was fined $22,079 and the company, Australia China Trading Investment Consultancy Group, was penalised a further $118,711.
The court action followed an investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The company offers services to international students seeking Australian visas and entry into education institutions.
The five employees worked as clerks at the centre were underpaid a total of $76,186 between 2009 and 2013, but the underpayments have now been rectified in full.
Judge John O’Sullivan said in his decision the company had failed to provide its employees with basic and important entitlements.
“The employees were denied their statutory entitlements for an extended period and were only paid correctly when the (FWO) threatened to commence these proceedings,” O’Sullivan said.
Aussie shares have opened higher this morning, following a positive lead from Wall Street overnight.
The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 19.1 points to 5313.1 at 12:01pm AEDT. Overnight the Dow Jones closed 108.88 points higher, up 0.67% to 16,331.05.
