Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for tabling this motion. I have a strong natural sympathy for the concerns she has expressed, being the representative of a major working port and of significant shipbuilding and maritime industry precinct in my electorate of Fremantle.

In 2012, the Labor government introduced and passed a number of bills that were aimed at revitalising coastal shipping in Australia. This first meant addressing a number of measures and practices that took hold during the period of the Howard coalition government, especially those that gave free and ill-conceived rein to foreign-owned and foreign-flagged vessels through the misapplication of the permit system. But it also meant providing incentives for Australian shipowners to upgrade and renew an ageing fleet of Australian vessels, and encouragement for those who operated Australian-registered vessels and who employed Australian seafarers.

These initiatives went hand in hand with further measures to advance the international competitiveness of Australian shipping, and to make our contribution to supporting stronger international labour laws and safety compliance. They were, frankly, long overdue and they represent an important achievement of the Rudd-Gillard Labor government. As the minister, Anthony Albanese, stated at the time:

We are a country where 99.9 per cent of our exports are moved by ships, and there will soon be no Australian shipping fleet to revitalise. We need to act now or we will simply not have an industry at all, and an Aussie flag on the back of an Aussie ship will be consigned to history … This is sensible policy to level the playing field with our international competitors.

I note that some of these shipping reforms supported the improvement of basic working conditions for seafarers around the world and were championed by the Maritime Union of Australia. As I noted in my speech on coastal shipping in 2012:

The largest branch of the MUA has been and continues to be a critical mainstay of social values and industrial rights in Fremantle and Western Australia. The MUA has always been one of my community's strongest, most vibrant foundation blocks: an organisation whose contribution to the social capital in Freo goes far beyond its important industrial work to also encompass the wider general values of collective trust, care and obligation and the wider specific concerns in areas like safety, health, the environment and social justice.

The labour movement in this country is motivated by the best values and best interests of people everywhere, especially working conditions, not only for Australians but for all workers. The last thing we want to see is Work Choices on water.

Any assessment of the proper regulation of Australian shipping and of coastal shipping in particular is much more than a narrowly framed question of economic efficiency. To some degree the member for Newcastle's motion states the obvious in noting that we are an island nation, yet it is a point that has to be made, because in this day and age of easy international air travel and digital communication it is possible to forget that our lifeline, in many respects, remains dependent upon sea freight. And in the circumstances of any regional conflict or instability, the availability of Australian-owned vessels is a critical security consideration.

Many countries recognise the importance of a domestic shipping capacity on that basis and therefore regulate to support their own national fleets. If one is happy to let the existence of an Australian-owned shipping fleet be determined and dictated by the cold winds of laissez-faire economics, then it is more than likely that Australia will soon be left without any meaningful capacity in this regard, especially when many comparable nations are active in protecting their own domestic shipping fleets.

The United States is an excellent example, notwithstanding its image as the pre-eminent champion of the free market. Like the US, we have experience of needing access to shipping in times of conflict, both in war and, more recently, in some of our regional peacekeeping efforts. But unlike the US, we have been inclined—certainly under coalition governments—to overlook that aspect of our security and to pull away the regulations designed to buttress Australian shipping.

As I have said before, if your basic mindset sees all regulations as red tape and only judges policy in terms of how successfully it leaves us exposed to market forces then you will always be at risk of missing the bigger picture in which sensible regulation is part of an holistic web, like a circulatory system or a safety net.

What is also at threat as a result of the government's neglect in this area is coastal shipping as part of the broader freight task in this country. I know as a Western Australian that the opportunity in future to have more freight delivered by sea and less by road, whether that is to Fremantle or other regional destinations, is an important contributor to a lower carbon economy and to lowering the urban and regional impacts of road freight. We have to ask ourselves: is it really sensible to sit back and allow—or even to facilitate, as this government appears intent on doing—the severe dwindling of an Australian owned shipping fleet, the continuing decline of Australian flagged vessels and the corresponding decrease in Australian coastal shipping? Common sense tells us it is not, and I hope the Abbott government heeds this call to respect and enhance the work done by the former Labor government in support of Australian shipping.

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