Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 makes a significant number of unrelated amendments to four maritime acts. Labor generally welcomes these amendments. Consistent with the Howard government’s approach to Australia’s maritime sector, they do not represent any great embrace of good policy; they do, however, introduce some improvements, particularly with respect to safety and environmental safeguards. For that reason Labor will support the amendments.

The bill amends the Lighthouses Act 1911 to provide for the maintenance of marine navigational aids and higher penalties for damaging aids or failing to report such damage. The bill also makes some amendments to the Navigation Act 1912, which is the principal Commonwealth act relating to the safety of ships. These amendments include revised pilotage provisions to provide for compulsory pilotage in areas specified by regulation; revised provisions relating to the reporting of ship movements; revised provisions relating to alcohol and other drugs and allowing for the taking of mouth swabs to test for alcohol and other drugs; provision of immunity from civil claims for pilots and pilotage providers; abolition of the requirement for six months notice before the minister can cancel a continuing voyage permit; and increased penalties for major offences that pose a threat to life or the environment.

The bill also amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983. This act implements the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, known as MARPOL. The bill amends the act to require Australian chemical tankers to prepare and carry a noxious liquid substances plan; provide that security paid by the owner or master in the event of a pollution breach must cover the maximum amount of penalties that may be payable by all members of the crew; and clarify that documents that may be served on a ship’s agent include documents that may be served on the owner, the master or any member of the crew.

The Shipping Registration Act facilitates the registration of ships in Australia, grants ships Australian nationality and provides for the registration of mortgages over ships. The bill amends the act to provide that mortgages can be removed from the register at the request of the mortgagee; allow the minister to delegate his or her powers under the act to a staff member of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority; and provide for access to the Australian Register of Ships by electronic means.

That is what the bill will do. Let me now turn to what the bill fails to do, particularly with respect to coastal shipping—a matter raised by the shadow minister for transport, Senator Kerry O’Brien, during debate on this bill in the other place.

Section 286 of the Navigation Act provides that the minister for transport may issue a single-voyage permit or a continuing voyage permit to an unlicensed ship to engage in trade between Australian ports. The minister may do so only if there is no licensed ship available or the service provided by a licensed ship would be inadequate, and the minister is satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. As already noted, this bill amends the act to remove the requirement for the minister to give six months notice of the intention to cancel a continuing voyage permit.

On 18 July last year the Australian revealed details of an internal audit of the Howard government’s administration of coastal shipping under the Navigation Act. It was obtained under freedom of information provisions and I am sure that it is no surprise that the government failed to release the report of its own initiative. The only way it could be obtained was under freedom of information provisions.

A compliance review of coastal shipping permits was conducted by KPMG for the Department of Transport and Regional Services and completed in October 2004. There has been ample time for the government to tell the public, certainly the maritime public, of the report and its outcomes. The minister knows, even if he fails to admit it, that the review delivered a damning assessment of the Howard government’s performance. The government may well be celebrating 10 years in office, but it has been 10 years wasted in many areas. The review found that the administration of coastal shipping licences and permits for foreign vessels under this government is a shambles. The audit revealed that one in six coastal shipping permits are granted without a signed application form, which, according to KPMG, means:

... the department risks granting a permit based on a bogus or unauthorised application.

Given the climate of national security and fear, everyone would understand that this would be something that the government would not want to overlook. The audit also revealed that inadequate financial controls mean that the government may be unaware of fraud, errors or other irregularities related to licence and permit applications—again just a lack of accountability or transparency or a government that just does not care. The audit report also revealed that poor record keeping means that data relating to more than one in five approved licence and permit applications is ‘absent or incorrect’ and that existing regulations are, in KPMG’s words, ‘out of date’ and ‘do not reflect current operating procedures’.

It is quite a damning report card, an indictment on this government’s lack of action in this area. If that were not enough, it found that the minister’s department had breached the Navigation (Coasting Trade) Regulations Act 1937 and ministerial guidelines on the regulation of coastal shipping by failing to establish whether a licensed ship is available before issuing a permit.

Single and continuous voyage permits are only supposed to be issued when a licensed ship is unavailable and the minister is satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. It should not be forgotten that different rules apply to unlicensed foreign ships granted single or continuous voyage permits. They are not required to pay their crews Australian wages when trading on the Australian coast. We have seen reports in the past on that. I am particularly referring to the ships of shame and other problems related to the maritime industry generally. These ships, many of them flag of convenience vessels, can undercut Australian wages and conditions when plying their trade on the Australian coast.

The simple truth is that the Howard government has presided over the near destruction of Australia’s coastal trading fleet while giving a leg up to foreign shippers that, in many cases, use substandard vessels and engage cheap foreign labour at the expense of Australian jobs. The minister has said that the government has addressed deficiencies identified in the audit report. It did take the release of the report under the freedom of information request for the minister to actually acknowledge the shambolic state of coastal shipping administration.

The minister’s department has told the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee that the recommendations in the report will be addressed through amendments to the coasting trading regulations. We have not seen those rewritten regulations yet, so we will all be waiting for the minister to act on his promise. I invite the minister to tell us where he is up to and what stage we are at in the process of that taking place.

Labor is also concerned, however, that the changes will have little relationship to the recommendations in the review. At the AusIntermodal 2005 conference in Sydney last year the minister said that there was too much regulation of coastal shipping—obviously, not too much in the sense that it is being done properly. It appears that the minister’s answer is the dilution of the few rules that regulate coastal trading activity. As Senator O’Brien, the shadow minister, has observed, the minister knows he does not have the capacity to enforce coastal trading rules, so he is thinking about getting rid of them altogether.

It is important to understand why the government’s failure to properly administer the cabotage system matters and should matter. First, the lax administration of coastal trading places Australia at a heightened risk of maritime terrorism. The Howard government has been issuing permits in response to unsigned applications. This is not a light point; this is something very serious and something that the government should take note of. That is, the government has risked granting permits based on bogus or unauthorised applications. If you work that through the fear is that, if somebody wanted to perpetrate some act on our nation, this would be a perfect mechanism to carry that out.

It is no secret that the international shipping industry has a dark side to it. During the course of its inquiry into the introduction of a maritime security identification card the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee received evidence that:

International Maritime Security agencies accept that Osama Bin Laden owns a fleet of cargo ships all flagged under the “Flag of convenience” system. This system evades taxes, and most other regulated cost but more importantly provides the beneficial owner with the most effective veil of anonymity available in international trade.

There is no more effective veil of anonymity than a blank application form. In Labor’s view, there can be no more effective way to make Australia more vulnerable to terrorist attack than by permitting foreign ships to sail from port to port without even causing them the inconvenience of lodging a signed permit form. Foreign ships authorised to trade on our coast by this government carry oil, chemicals, LPG and other dangerous goods including ammonium nitrate—all chemicals of concern to Australia’s security.

The Australian maritime transport compendium commissioned by the Australian Shipowners Association and published in 2005 tells a telling statistical tale about the growing use of foreign ships to transport goods around Australian ports. It reveals that, since 1991-92, the number of permits issued to foreign ships has grown by over 325 per cent. In 2003-04, foreign vessels were permitted to carry 27.5 per cent of the Australian interstate and intrastate sea freight trade, up from eight per cent when Labor last held office.

As noted, foreign seafarers are not subject to the same rules that apply to Australian seafarers serving on Australian ships. Not only are foreign seafarers denied Australian pay and conditions but they are not subject to the same security regime as Australian seafarers. This is not just a case about pay and conditions, important as that is—and very much so—but, also very importantly, about international and Australian security. The much-delayed implementation of the maritime security identification card regime does not impose additional requirements on foreign seafarers. Australian truck drivers delivering goods to our ports are going to be subject to more stringent background and identity checking than foreign seafarers sailing from port to port. Imagine the duplicity in that system.

Labor says that the carriage of high-consequence dangerous goods like ammonium nitrate by foreign ships must stop now if Australia is serious about minimising the threat of terrorism. We often hear the government speak of this, its so-called mantra on these issues—some sort of ownership over terrorism issues. Where are the practical acts in very simple bits of legislation that could actually deal with some of these very real threats to Australia?

The Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, can claim much of the credit for raising public awareness about this issue, but the government is not paying much attention. It is clear to just about everyone except those opposite that the safest way to transport high-consequence dangerous goods around Australia is on Australian ships crewed by Australian men and women subject to appropriate security screening—people who are paid appropriately, have the appropriate conditions and will do the job in a safe and secure way.

Secure ships and secure seafarers mean better protection for the Australian community, our ports and our infrastructure. This is not just about keeping dangerous substances out of the hands of terrorists and supporting Australian shippers and maritime workers. It is clear that the increasing carriage of sea freight around our coast by foreign ships—many of them, as we know, flag of convenience vessels subject to minimal regulation—also puts our natural environment at risk. It is a matter of good luck, not good governance, that Australia has not seen a major environmental disaster associated with the carriage of chemical or petroleum products by a ‘ship of shame’.

The Howard government’s neglect of shipping policy threatens our economy, our national security and our natural environment. It is time that the Howard government ceased abusing the cabotage system. It should be enforcing the rules, not just talking about walking away from them altogether.

There are other things the government should also be doing to secure our maritime borders. A critical issue is the enforcement of crew and manifest advance reporting. The government has a 48-hour rule in place but does not adequately enforce it. It is past time that it did so and took seriously its own regulations, its own legislation.

Labor supports this bill, but it does not support the Howard government’s failed administration of maritime policy. I now move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemn the Government for:

(a)

failing to uphold Australia’s national interest by adopting anti-Australian shipping policies that favour foreign vessels and crew despite the risk to national security, Australian jobs and the natural environment;

(b)

failing to ensure adequate security in relation to the shipping of dangerous goods and hazardous material, including explosives precursors such as ammonium nitrate; and

(c)

failing to ensure ships comply with the requirement to provide details of crew and cargo forty-eight hours before arrival.”

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