Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the second reading amendment and against the government's Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill, because this bill, if enacted, will tear away at the employment conditions of Australian workers in the maritime sector. I think it is fitting that I follow the member for Braddon, because in mid-July I visited the member for Braddon's electorate to speak with the crew on Alexander Spirit, who were instructed to take that vessel to Singapore and hand over the vessel and their jobs to overseas workers. It really is a concern to the opposition that the government, wherever possible, finds an opportunity to turn its back on Australian industry. We saw it in this place in December 2013—the former Treasurer goading Holden to leave our shores. Holden subsequently, the following day, made a decision to leave Australia. The effects of that are not yet fully felt, but over the next year or so direct employees of that car company, and indeed of another car company, will be losing their jobs. Following that, tens of thousands of people are likely to lose their jobs in the automotive parts sector of our economy—just at a time, of course, when they would have been advised by Treasury that the dollar was falling and the exchange rate was such that there were export opportunities for the car industry. The government showed callous disregard for those workers and indeed for the industry generally. Again we see ideology dictating the government's policy. As you listened to the previous speaker, the member for Braddon, you would have thought that he was sacking union officials. Effectively, what he was doing was justifying the removal of employment conditions that are governed by Australian law for people who work on those vessels. He was effectively saying that he wants to see Third World wages on those vessels and he wants to see fewer Australian crew—that would be the consequence of the enactment of this legislation.

It does worry me that not only do the government seem to be indifferent to industry policy and to engaging with industry but also they seem to be particularly animated in their delight when they think that they can get rid of jobs in this country—and particularly if they are organised, unionised jobs. If you are in an industry where there might be some presence of a union, watch out, because this government takes great delight and glee in seeing the back of you. That is what we heard from the member for Braddon. He delighted in talking about the fact that these people will lose their jobs because they happen to be members of a union, which is quite remarkable to hear in any place. It does not matter what your political view is, it is alarming that Australians should lose their jobs because of an ideological position; a position which defends neither jobs nor industry.

So, I oppose the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. The minister, when introducing this bill, said:

The bill I introduce today will implement major reforms to the regulatory framework for coastal shipping.

He was not wrong about the proposed change being major, but he was definitely wrong about it being major reform. This is not reform; this is retrograde, draconian change which will directly result in the sacking of Australian workers and their replacement with foreign crews. The former Labor government, in 2012, made significant reforms in the maritime industry, including the introduction of the Coastal Trading Act. This act ensured that there was a level playing field and provided the industry with a stable fiscal and regulatory regime to encourage investment and promote our international competitiveness. The reforms were aimed at sustaining the Australian shipping industry. There are persuasive national security, employment, economic, supply chain security, skill retention, environmental and strategic reasons for retaining policies that provide fair competition to enable Australian coastal shipping to prosper and grow. I thought the member for Grayndler outlined that very compellingly in his contribution to this debate.

The maritime sector provides jobs for thousands of Australians—at least 2,000 seafarers and many more thousands of land-based workers. As I mentioned, the Labor reforms provide a level playing field for domestic shipping that enable Australian ships and seafarers the opportunity to compete on fair terms in the Australian domestic sea freight industry. This bill, however, would allow the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development to reverse the maritime reforms that we put in place, which will risk the jobs of those seafarers and up to 8,000 other land-based workers. The minister claimed that his planned changes are the elimination of red tape, but that, of course, is nonsense.

The Labor reforms were the result of broad consultations with big companies, sectoral interest groups and experts. They were backed by an all-party parliamentary committee. So, you have to ask yourself: why is the Turnbull government now looking to make these economically irresponsible changes? If you ask me, it is the irrational enmity the government has for, in particular, the Maritime Union of Australia. We have seen—through its actions and not just its words—this government wage war on Australian unions. There is the royal commission, there is the opening up of the debate on penalty rates by the new Prime Minister and there are many pieces of legislation sitting in the Senate that go to undermining the capacity of working people to bargain to maintain security of employment.

However, this issue has nothing to do with whether or not you like unions; it is about jobs. The government, we would contend, should bury its ideology and consider the national interest; that national interest is to retain the reforms we put in place in 2012, which were industry backed reforms. Consider this compelling example, which my colleague—the member for Grayndler—has raised: if you move freight by road, the truck driver earns fair wages; if you move freight on a train, the train operates under Australian law and the driver is paid Australian level wages—why should that be any different if you move freight by sea? If a truck that is owned and operated by a Taiwanese company wants to take goods from Brisbane to Sydney, there would be no-one who would argue that the driver of the truck should work under the standards of Taiwanese wages, training for the truck driver and workplace health and safety provisions. They would argue that the wages, training and other conditions needed to be of Australian standards, otherwise we would have people driving up and down our highways earing $2 or $3 an hour, which is an absurd proposition.

Therefore, it would be just as absurd to argue that people who work on a ship going from Brisbane to Sydney—an Australian, domestic task of carrying Australian goods from one port to another Australian port—should not be paid Australian wages and afforded Australian workplace conditions. In fact, to unwind Labor's changes would actually cause a distortion in the freight market. This government's dishonesty and incompetence in relation to this matter is hurting Australia, it is hurting our economy, it is hurting jobs and it is hurting the most vulnerable. The government is willing to eliminate Australian jobs and it is happy to replace the Australian flag on the back of ships with those of foreign ships—and for what?

Importantly, our reforms allow for the use of foreign flagged vessels, but they require businesses to first seek to use Australian vessels. Labor believes we should be supporting our industry. We want to see an Australian flag; we want to see Australian flag vessels carrying Australian goods that benefit the Australian economy. The shipping industry is an integral component of our economy and it cannot be allowed to fail. Labor will therefore fight these changes that will risk Australian jobs. We oppose them not just because it is the right thing but because it is the economically responsible thing to do.

I will just finish what I started in relation to the conversations I had with the crew of the Alexander Spirit. I did get the opportunity to go onto that vessel. It soon, in some days, subsequently disembarked for Singapore. From speaking to the engineers and to the seafarers generally on that vessel that day, what they could not understand was how the government would turn its back on their jobs and their livelihood. The fact that they were being asked, in that instance, to sail the ship from Devonport to another country, as I said earlier, to hand over the vessel and to hand over their jobs was something that they could not fully comprehend; they could not believe they were in that position, because it is an unconscionable act in the case of the company to do that and the way in which it was done was unconscionable.

Now, we see before us in this parliament a piece of legislation that, if enacted, will strip away the basic conditions of employment that govern our workplace arrangements in this country. It would be very unfair to those workers. In some of the jobs, you would see a fall in employment conditions by up to 80 per cent, arguably. This would all be driven by an ideology that says, 'We need to attack those workers and we need to remove their conditions.' As we said, those are conditions that apply in other parts of this country and yet, for some reason, the government has chosen to focus its enmity on the maritime sector with a particular ferocity.

We do not believe it is in the interests of that sector of this country to proceed down that path. We would ask government to reconsider its position and seek to engage with the industry with a view to ensuring that we do have Australian flag vessels that do allow for Australian employment conditions to continue, as is the case in most comparable countries, including the United States and the European states, which do likewise.

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