Teal MPs are backing Andrew Wilkie’s call for an inquiry into an alleged coal scam after the independent MP claimed in parliament on Monday that mining companies had faked evidence about the quality of their exports to increase profits.

Wilkie said he had thousands of documents – four pages of which he tabled in parliament – from an anonymous coal executive whistleblower that showed the alleged misconduct occurred in exports to Japan, South Korea, China and India.

Andrew Wilkie warned the Albanese government he would pursue an investigation.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said an investigation into the whistleblower’s claims and one of the mining companies named by Wilkie on Monday was “well advanced”.

A spokesperson for federal Resources Minister Madeleine King said the government would look into Wilkie’s “concerning” claims and had requested briefings from ASIC and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

Wilkie claimed in parliament that laboratory ALS had conducted “fraudulent testing” that suggested some coal exported from Australia was of a higher quality than it actually was, potentially increasing the price miners could charge and attracting fewer import restrictions due to pollution. ASIC recently concluded an investigation into ALS without action.

He alleged the scam involved coal miners TerraCom, Anglo American, Glencore and Peabody as well as intermediaries Macquarie Bank and accountancy firm Ernst and Young, which he said had ignored the behaviour.

“They’re paying bribes to representatives of their overseas customers to keep the whole scam secret. And this has allowed them to falsely claim, for years, that Australian coal is cleaner than coal from elsewhere, even though it’s often simply not true,” Wilkie said.

Fellow independents including Sophie Scamps, Zoe Daniel, Helen Haines, Monique Ryan and Kate Chaney supported the Tasmanian MP’s call for an inquiry.

“The reality is there is no such thing as clean coal and the evidence provided by this brave coal industry whistleblower suggests that the coal industry has been misleading the world for years,” Scamps said.

An ASIC spokesperson said it had conducted “extensive investigations” and its inquiries into TerraCom, which owns the Blair Athol mine in Queensland, were ongoing and “well advanced”.

“We can confirm that we are currently investigating possible misleading market disclosures by coal miner TerraCom and whistleblower-related matters,” the spokesperson said.

“As has been previously reported, this investigation has included serving a warrant on the company’s Blair Athol mine in March 2021 and, a year later, overcoming a Federal Court application from TerraCom seeking to deny ASIC access to a PwC report into the allegations.

“As the investigation is continuing, ASIC is not able to discuss the matter in any more detail at this stage.”

Wilkie said despite evidence that justified investigation, the claims had already been ignored by Australian Federal Police, the NSW Police, the ASIC, the then-Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and the Morrison government.

He warned the Albanese government he would pursue an investigation as he did over claims of wrongdoing at Crown Casino.

“I am very mindful as I go through this matter … of what happened with Crown Casino. I brought into the parliament hard evidence of criminality in 2017,” he said.

“Regulator after regulator, year after year, failed to act and I just kept getting more and more evidence in and eventually a number of inquiries and royal commissions were set up.”

A royal commission last year found Crown had engaged in “disgraceful” conduct.

An Anglo American spokesperson said the allegations were “entirely false”.

“We take these matters very seriously and when issues surrounding testing were first reported on by media in early 2020, we undertook an investigation which found no evidence that any of our cargoes had been impacted,” the spokesperson said.

A Peabody spokesperson said the company “strenuously denies Mr Wilkie’s claims”.

TerraCom, Glencore, Macquarie and EY were contacted for comment.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said Australia’s coal exports were “amongst the best in the world”.

“Ongoing shipments to regular customers over many decades reflects positively on the general quality of Australia’s export coal trade,” Constable said.

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