Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. I would like to start by commenting on a few statements made by the member for Griffith during her contribution. She said—and I think I have got this word for word—'The differences between the coalition and Labor are so stark.' She also talked about the party that stands up for Australian jobs. She said, 'Look at the track record.' That is where I will start. I am very proud to look at the track record of the coalition and that of the Labor Party when it comes to jobs.

The previous coalition government reduced the unemployment queues of this country by 300,000 people. The 300,000 people that were on the unemployment queue back in 1996 were put into employment. Those queues were 300,000 people shorter the during the Howard-Costello years. They were the years during the Asian financial crisis. Not only did that government reduce the unemployment queues by those 300,000 people; they also repaid $96 billion worth of debt that they had inherited from Labor, plus an extra $54 billion in interest that they had to take out of the economy and pay back on Labor's debt. They put the budget back into surplus and put money in the bank, and decreased the unemployment queues by 300,000.

Let's look at Labor's track record during its six years in government. During that period, the unemployment queues actually lengthened by 200,000 people. So we had a 300,000 reduction under the coalition and a 200,000 increase under the Labor Party. They ran up $300 billion worth of debt despite, at the time, having record commodity prices. Yes, we did have a GFC, but we had China going gangbusters, with record increases in our exports. Despite that, we had 200,000 fewer jobs. So I am very pleased to talk to anyone who wants to talk about the track records on employment of this coalition and of the Labor Party. Already, in the two short years that the coalition government has been in office, we have seen another 335,000 new jobs created in this economy.

So the track records make it clear. It is the coalition that stands up for job and it is the coalition that gets the economic settings of the economy right so that jobs can be created, while, on the other side, with Labor, it is all about protection, it is all about regulation, it is all about central planning. And what do we see time and time again? We see job losses. Fundamentally, the Labor Party have no understanding of how you achieve sustainable higher wages in an economy. They have no understanding of how you achieve sustainable employment growth—by freeing the hands of our small businesses and entrepreneurs to go out there and invest, innovate and take risks, and to start up new business and employ people.

When it comes to the production of goods and services in this economy, the only way we can have high wages and the only way we can have more jobs is by the production of goods and services in this economy being done as efficiently and competitively as possible. That should be the aim of all governments. Freight is a major cost component in the production of all goods. Even though any particular industry in any location can be highly efficient and highly competitive, they still have to get their inputs freighted into their plant and they have to get their final produce shipped out of their plant. So the freight costs—something they have very little control over—often have a great say in how competitive and how efficient that business can be.

As a nation we have many natural resources. We are blessed with that black coal seam that runs down our eastern seaboard. We are blessed with the gold, iron ore, lead, zinc, uranium, silver and nickel in our outback. We are blessed with natural gas. We are blessed with forests. We are blessed with a wonderful system of government—our Westminster system—and our Constitution. We are blessed with an educated population. But the one disadvantage that we have is the tyranny of distance. Yes, as Geoffrey Blainey argued, that tyranny of distance has helped us. It has helped drive innovation. It has helped create for us a nation of rugged individualists. But the tyranny of distance when it comes to freight and goods is the major disadvantage that we have in our economy. Other than the Antarctic, being the least populated continent in the world, for us the cost of freight as a result of that tyranny of distance is one of the major obstacles that our businesses that produce goods have to overcome. I would suggest that there is nowhere else in the world, no other nation anywhere else in the world, where it is more important to have an efficient and competitive transport system. That transport system is made up, of course, of sea freight but also road, rail and air freight. Often, they all combine—which I will come to in a minute. If we have an inefficient system, if we have an uncompetitive transport sector, it will cost jobs, it will destroy wealth and it will make us all poorer as a nation.

So where are we with coastal sea freight in this country? We have coastal sea freight that is in long-term decline. We no longer really ship goods from Sydney to Melbourne by sea. That is not necessary. We have great infrastructure with the Hume Highway. A truck can load up in a warehouse or a factory in Sydney, be about 10 hours on the road and get to Melbourne overnight. We can do the same from Sydney to Brisbane. We have a reasonably efficient road network. Yes, our Pacific Highway does need more work. But our road system from Sydney to Melbourne is actually of an excellent standard. We need to fix up those patches on the Pacific Highway so that we have the same standard going north to Brisbane as we do going south to Melbourne. But our sea freight, our coastal shipping, is in long-term decline. Just look at some of the numbers. In 1996, the fleet of major Australian registered ships numbered 75. By 2005-06, that had gone down to 46. In 2006-07, it was down to just 13. In 2013-14, it had declined to just 15. It is a declining industry. Those 15 ships that are left are ageing, they are less efficient, and they are inefficient when it comes to fuel and staffing. The ships cannot compete with modern vessels—with those ships having an average age of 23. So, that long-term decline is continuing.

We saw that decline continue under the policies of the former Labor government. Since Labor brought in their grand plan for the so-called revitalisation of coastal shipping, we have seen a 63 per cent reduction in deadweight tonnage of major Australian flagged vessels. That is from 2011-12 to 2013-14—a decline of 63 per cent. We have seen the paperwork and the bureaucratic system they have put onto industry—about a thousand extra hours in administration per year with red tape. We have seen the number of ships on the Australian transitional general licence drop from 16 to just eight. Overall, from the year 2000 to the year 2012, shipping's share of Australia's total freight task fell from 27 per cent to under 17 per cent.

We are looking at an industry where jobs are in decline and have been in decline for a long time, and that is the Australian coastal shipping industry. The fact that we have an inefficient coastal shipping industry has other effects throughout the economy which cause job losses. The problem is that it is cheaper for a company in Brisbane to import raw product from anywhere in South-East Asia and ship it into Brisbane than it is to ship it around from Adelaide to Brisbane. Having a highly regulated and highly protected Australian shipping industry costs Australian jobs. It does not protect jobs or save jobs; it actually costs jobs in the economy. It makes us as a nation less efficient and it makes us less wealthy overall. That is what this bill addresses. Yes, there will potentially be some adverse small effects to the Australian shipping industry, but it is an industry already in decline. We should not be protecting industries that are in decline, because by doing so we harm the rest of the economy. There are so many industry-wide benefits to this bill that will help our resources, cement, aluminium, fertiliser, petroleum, sugar, grain and many other products which use coastal shipping.

I have come across a few interesting quotes on the proposed changes. I have one here from a company called Gypsum Resources Australia from one of their submissions. They say that their

competitiveness in the Australian gypsum market is largely dependent on the competitiveness of its coastal shipping services. If GRA is competitive in sea freight then it is likely to win the business. Whilst GRA's FOB [free on board] costs

that means the cost ex-factory—

and associated pricing is competitive with its [overseas] competitors it has often been unable to compete in the Australian domestic gypsum market due to the uncompetitive GL [general licence] shipping rates which it is required to use under the current Act.

They gave an example. In 2014 they applied for but were denied a temporary licence and that stopped them winning a contract to supply gypsum into Brisbane. They said denial of the licence rendered their tender uncompetitive and most customers were lost to a company from Thailand. There were job losses. They were jobs that should have and could have been done in Australia and it would have been the most efficient way to do it, but, because our costal shipping line was uncompetitive, we lost jobs. There were no jobs in the shipping industry, because no freight was moved—the product came from Thailand rather than Adelaide—and there were no jobs in the Adelaide factory.

It is easy to see how this current legislation, which needs to be fixed and which we are changing, actually costs jobs. I have another quote—this time from Cristal Mining:

We need to stop insisting on a highly regulated, costly and inefficient protectionist environment to attempt to preserve a declining coastal shipping industry because all other Australian industries dependent on coastal freight up being disadvantaged.

The last 30 years of review demonstrate the objective of a viable and sustainable Australian flaked coastal shipping fleet is receding ever further into the distance. That objective although nationally reassuring should not be placed ahead of the economic viability of many other Australian businesses that depend on reasonable cost coastal shipping options. The jobs of a very small number in the maritime sector cannot artificially be made more valuable than those of thousands in the transnational value-adding industries.

…      …   …

The Act, in its current form, puts Australian industry at risk of operational shutdowns and possible job losses.

That spells it all out.

That is why we see the opposition from the Labor Party on this bill. All they are interested in doing is protecting a few of their mates in the maritime union while at the same time sacrificing thousands and thousands of jobs in other sectors of the economy. This is why under Labor jobs are always lost, while under the coalition jobs are created. We govern for the good of the country and the good of the economy. We are prepared to come in here and make hard decisions, rather than fall back on scare campaigns or protect our mates in the unions. I oppose this amendment and I commend this bill to the House.

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