Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. This bill seeks to remedy the dire situation facing our coastal shipping sector in this country. This is not the first time I have risen in this place to speak about the coastal shipping industry, as it is an issue that I care very deeply about. Coastal shipping is one of many sectors that have suffered because of the self-interested and uncompetitive voice of the unions and their Labor puppets.

In my electorate of Braddon the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, coupled with the Tasmanian Labor-Greens coalition, fundamentally failed my state on just about every social and economic indicator. Unemployment levels rose drastically and education suffered alongside a dire economic forecast which was a result of fiscal mismanagement. However, it was not enough for the Labor Party, with their faceless union masters in the wings, to set about destroying our nation's finances. Indeed, alongside their Greens allies, they set about destroying the coastal shipping industry in this country. The Coastal Trading Act was perhaps the most effective tool that regime enacted to suffocate the Tasmanian economy.

Shipping is the lifeblood of the Tasmanian economy. Tasmania, an island, is dependent on shipping. So, too, is Australia, by the way. When shipping works the Tasmanian economy works; when shipping fails the Tasmanian economy struggles. Legislation enacted under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd debacle has starved the coastal shipping industry not only in Tasmania but across our island nation. What an absurd and perverse situation we are faced with when it comes to Labor and the Greens' approach to coastal shipping. Those opposite are so inward-looking that they think the Australian economy will benefit from a coastal shipping industry that is so overburdened with regulation and red tape that it is on the point of submersion. So beholden are they to their union masters that those who sit opposite enacted legalisation which has fundamentally hurt the workers they purport to be representatives of. What a farcical situation we are now faced with. In the same way as Labor is currently bowing to the militant CFMEU on ChAFTA, they capitulated to the MUA on coastal shipping. And guess who has suffered? It is Australian workers and Australian businesses. By stifling Australian competitiveness in the coastal shipping sector, those opposite signed a death warrant for the industry.

This government believes in our shipping industry, and we believe in jobs for Australian workers. As per usual, the Maritime Union of Australia is totally disconnected from the reality of the global economy. Under the previous Labor government's coastal shipping reform—fundamentally, as I said earlier, driven by vested union interests—shipping companies have been suffocated with bureaucracy, red tape and the need for endless permits, coupled with union protectionism. The shipping industry has effectively been run aground. This is costing jobs and has increased costs to consumers and to exporters at a time when competitiveness is the major struggle and the major challenge we face. The only jobs this union protectionism has saved are those of the union officials and their spineless puppets in the ALP. It is absolutely disgraceful.

In my electorate and across my state it has cost hundreds of other jobs. The situation we are faced with is absolutely abhorrent and is directly attributable to bad policies enacted under the previous Labor government. What those on the other side of the chamber are really saying is that it is okay to protect the jobs that they have a pecuniary interest in. They will do whatever they have to do through legislation to protect those jobs, but at the cost of hundreds—if not thousands—of other jobs which, in the eyes of the Australian Labor Party, obviously do not count. Labor's coastal shipping reforms are a throwback to the old Labor new protectionist platform of the early 1990s. Just 49 million tonnes of coastal freight were loaded in 2012-13. Five years earlier it was over 59 million tonnes. As a result, freight costs have hit Australian businesses hard—and Tasmanian businesses, I would argue, the hardest. Bell Bay Aluminium, a major employer in the state of Tasmania, has indicated an increase in costs from $18.20 a tonne in 2011 to $29.70 a tonne in 2012—an increase of 63 per cent—following the introduction of the existing regulations. Compare that with freight rates offered by foreign vessels, which sat at $17.50 a tonne in 2012. Every dollar increase in the cost of freight puts more jobs at risk and stifles growth in any sector relying on coastal shipping, including the shipping industry itself.

Over the period 2010 to 2030, Australia's freight task is expected to grow by 80 per cent. While the national road and rail component is projected to double, coastal shipping movements are only expected to grow by a mere 15 per cent. It is time to bring coastal shipping back into the future. It is time that we had less regulation and more productivity. It is time to give the Australian coastal shipping industry some much needed space to grow.

It is unfortunate that we have had to take this legislative action, however it is a historical truth that coalition governments consistently have to clean up legislative messes created by the Australian Labor Party. They knew that implementing their unionist protection policies, overloading shipping companies with red tape and requiring permit after permit to ship goods around the country, would cost the industry billions of dollars and that the industry would, by default, pass those costs on. It was clear that that, in turn, would see an increase in the cost of goods to consumers and eventually cost jobs and hurt the Tasmanian economy, making us, as I said, less competitive at a time when we need to be even more competitive. In the face of all that anguish and opposition, the Australian Labor Party pressed ahead, regardless of the damage it was going to wreak on every single business in this country that relies on shipping—particularly in Tasmania.

I am tired of the MUA and their ALP marionettes coming into this place and falsely advocating for Australian shipping workers. I was elected to represent the interests of my constituents—the wider interests of my constituents—not the interests of some self-interested union which has a pedigree in damaging the economic interests of this country. In December 2010, the then shadow minister for transport, the Hon. Warren Truss, said:

This change would immediately take us back to the bad old days where companies wanting to ship product around Australia would have to wait weeks and sometimes months for an Australian flagged and crewed vessel to become available.

The now Deputy Prime Minister went on to predict:

It will be cheaper and simpler to import products from Asia, the United States and even Europe than it will to move them from one port to another in Australia. It will be more attractive to process Australian raw materials overseas than to ship them to an Australian port.

What a wise comment by the now Deputy Prime Minister. He was right. It has cost Tasmanian producers, manufacturers and small businesses a lot of money and it has cost many jobs in our state.

Australians must never forget that we are an island nation. A significant amount of the goods we require for everyday existence is delivered to our ports via costal shipping. The permanence of our geography and the ever-increasing forces of globalisation have resulted in our nation relying on costal shipping. We should not be hostage to our geography nor should we allow ourselves to remain exposed to the risk associated with a weak coastal shipping industry. The unionist protectionism which is at the core of the Labor Party's coastal shipping reforms has not had a positive impact on Australian industries.

The reality is that in 2012-13 Australian ports managed over $400 billion worth of international cargo and saw some 4,900 overseas cargo ships make almost 14,000 port calls. I applaud the hard work of our coastal shipping workers and also thank workers across the ports of our great nation for the contribution they make. Yet I am deeply concerned that without the legislation this government is enacting their jobs will become increasingly untenable as red tape drives costs to increasingly uncompetitive levels.

Labor's actions have directly decreased coastal voyages by over a thousand and have resulted in almost two million fewer tonnes of freight moved by foreign vessels in 2012-13. Figures released in Australian Sea Freight 2012-13 show that 49 million tonnes of coastal freight were loaded in 2012-13 but that five years earlier, in 2007-08, it was over 59 million tonnes. This represents an average annual decline under Labor's watch of 2.4 per cent in the total weight of coastal freight. Meanwhile, the Australian trading fleet continued its downward trend, with the number of major Australian registered ships with coastal licences declining from 30 in 2006-07 to just 13 by 2012-13. While the number of vessels has marginally risen since the period covered by the report, deadweight tonnage has plummeted by 64 per cent over the two years of Labor's failed changes to domestic shipping arrangements. This is not because Australians cannot compete; it is because Labor and the MUA are unwilling to try.

The coalition government has an unshakable faith in the individual enterprise of Australian industry. We know that, through giving industry space to succeed and through clearing the burden of red tape, the Australian coastal industry can once again grow and create more jobs for Australian workers. It is abundantly clear that Labor's policies have failed the industry. Whichever way you look at it, they have failed the industry and its employees—and our economic growth is failing as a result. With the right policies, there is huge potential and upside for coastal trading unconstrained by needless red tape.

Between 2000 and 2012, shipping's share of national freight plummeted from 27 per cent to less than 17 per cent. Making that tale of the sea even worse, over the same period the volume of Australian freight actually grew by 57 per cent. So something is drastically wrong—and it will not get better by itself. It is projected that, over 2010 to 2030, Australia's national freight task will grow by a massive 80 per cent. While the national road and rail tasks are expected to double, coastal shipping movements, under the current regime, will grow a mere 15 per cent. Operating costs, particularly labour arrangements, are uncompetitive when compared with operating costs for foreign ships. For example, Cristal Mining has submitted that the difference between using Australian and foreign ships is an additional $5 million in costs to their business each and every year.

We are at a crossroads in Australia's coastal shipping. Either we can act now and create effective regulatory frameworks which deliver more growth and more jobs for the Australian economy, or we can pursue the agenda of the MUA. The choice is clear to me, but probably not so clear to those opposite. I deeply care about the interests of my constituents in Braddon, their businesses and their families, and the interests of all those across the great state from which I come. I know that this legislation will reinvigorate the Australian coastal shipping industry and deliver better outcomes for all Tasmanians. It is time to stand up to the MUA and to legislate better policy outcomes for all Australians, not to play politics with our coastal shipping industry at the expense of Australian and Tasmanian businesses.

I am proud to be part of a government which is attempting to clear the decks of our coastal shipping to enable an increase in the load Australians can undertake in a global market. This endeavour must succeed if the Australian coastal shipping industry is to be brought back into the future. This legislation goes some way to achieving that and therefore I commend it to the House.

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