Macmahon Pay Rates 2026: FIFO, Site & Award Floor Pay

Macmahon is a mining contractor providing surface and underground mining services, including work on black coal mine sites as well as other commodities, with a workforce of operators, tradespeople and mining crews working FIFO and residential rosters.

Most Macmahon sites sit on the Mining Industry Award 2020 floor, though coal sites are covered by the Black Coal Mining Industry Award instead — check which award applies to your specific site. Macmahon has several enterprise agreements registered in our corpus, covering different projects and commodities (listed below where one applies to your site); each has to leave staff better off overall than the relevant award.

The federal awards relevant to Macmahon roles:

• Mining Industry Award 2020 (MA000011)

Workforce snapshot. In the 2024-25 Workplace Gender Equality Agency reports, Macmahon Contractors Pty Ltd, Macmahon Underground Pty Ltd reported 3,590 employees (part of the Macmahon Holdings Limited group, 4,122 employees in total, 2.1% casual and 18.7% women). Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

The Mining Industry Award 2020 (MA000011) publishes each grade two ways: the base weekly rate (÷38 = hourly) and an 'ordinary hourly' rate that folds in the award's all-purpose industry allowance. Both are shown:

Coal mines sit on the Black Coal Mining Industry Award instead, which uses a 35-hour week — our BHP pay rates page explains the difference. FIFO rosters add the award's overtime, shift and weekend loadings on top of these figures.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Enterprise agreements set rates above the award, with their own classification structures and allowances. Current Macmahon agreements in our corpus (7 in total):

• Macmahon Byerwen Agreement 2025 — approved November 2025, nominal expiry 25 November 2029.
• Macmahon Mining Services Workshop Agreement 2024 — approved January 2025, nominal expiry 9 January 2029.
• Macmahon Mining Services Agreement 2023 — approved November 2023, nominal expiry 28 November 2027.
• Macmahon Base Workshops Agreement 2023 — approved October 2023, nominal expiry 27 October 2027.
• Macmahon Tropicana Surface Mining Agreement 2023 — approved May 2023, nominal expiry 4 May 2027.
• Macmahon Pilbara Surface Mining Agreement 2023 — approved April 2023, nominal expiry 27 April 2027.
• Macmahon Black Coal Mining Agreement 2023 — approved April 2023, nominal expiry 6 April 2027.

We don't reproduce agreement dollar figures here — the agreement covering your site, state and stream is the document to read. Find your agreement, then your classification, then your pay point, and compare it with your payslip. The award tables on this page are the floor every one of these agreements must beat.

The patterns worth checking on a Macmahon payslip:

• FIFO roster averaging that quietly loses overtime or public holiday loadings.
• Wrong level for the competency actually held.
• Labour-hire workers paid below the site's directly employed crew for the same work — the same-job-same-pay rules now apply.
• Travel and standby time unpaid.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.