There is not a politician in Australia who works harder than One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts.

Years of painstaking work by the Senator – who worked in the coal mining industry for many years before entering politics – has exposed what renowned economic commentator and Walkley-winning journalist Robert Gottliebsen says could be “Australia’s largest-ever wage underpayment scheme”.

Working with New South Wales and Queensland coal miners, Senator Roberts has revealed how thousands of them have been denied their full entitlements – potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars – for up to 10 years thanks to a dirty deal between labour hire companies, CFMEU bosses and the Fair Work Commission that circumvented award entitlements for casual labourers in the mines.

The irony is thick. Very thick. The CFMEU invades building sites, disrupts productivity in the construction industry across the nation and strikes at the slightest hint a worker has somehow not received everything they believe they’re entitled to. In this case, Senator Roberts has exposed how union bosses worked with an employer and the commission to dud coal miners, on average by more than $30,000 a year.

With Labor’s industrial relations legislation effectively handing enormous power over the national economy to union bosses, attacking small businesses and farmers in the process while accelerating the decline in national productivity, One Nation is very concerned that more employees in mining and other industries will be denied their entitlements by union bosses more interested in personal power than the rights of workers.

As Gottliebsen noted, coal miners in New South Wales and Queensland need a “real union” that will represent their interests.

“They also need politicians with a sense of fair play,” he concluded.

As One Nation supporters know, that is Malcolm Roberts in spades.