Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker Vasta—my electorate neighbour—for letting me continue my response to the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, which was rudely interrupted by question time and matters of public importance! This bill, more readily known as Work Choices on water, has some dubious claims. Eighty-eight per cent of the savings the government estimates will flow from this bill will be due to Australian workers being replaced by foreign crews. That is a disgrace. There is a real question about how many of those foreign crews will be working for Third World wage rates.

If I could flag the racism of the free market, where people seem to be more relaxed when foreign workers from poorer countries are being exploited here in Australia. We have seen it in the Four Corners expose of the workers in 7-Eleven; I have seen it in Queensland with some Taiwanese backpackers being exploited around Bundaberg, in some of the agricultural areas, where they were not being paid award wages. It does happen. Maybe it also happens to the Irish and the Americans and the Kiwis and perhaps people from other countries, but I think sometimes in Australia we can be more relaxed when it is a foreign worker from a poorer country, with the suggestion that because they would not have received such compensation in their own country it is somehow acceptable. That is not the Australian way.

This is an extremely short-sighted cost saving measure with no consideration for either the Australian workers who will be replaced on these ships or the foreign workers who will be working under conditions that we would not find acceptable. As we know, when people are at sea, literally a different set of rules applies and it can be hard to catch up and find and interview people and find out what went on. I have seen that, and the member for Isaacs would have seen that when he received the report on crimes at sea when he was the Attorney-General—the problems with finding reliable witnesses to what goes on beyond our coastline.

Under this bill only a very small number of senior positions will be required to be filled by an Australian citizen or resident or a person with a valid visa. How will Australian seafarers gain the necessary experience to move through the junior positions and eventually fill the senior positions if there will be no jobs available for them? It is like a lemmings policy, whereby the maritime industry will eventually go over the career cliff. It will start with a couple of senior positions but eventually the opportunities will ossify. It is not only the value of experienced Australian seafarers being in senior positions on ships in our waters but also the value of those experienced seafarers later taking onshore jobs that ensure the safety of our coastline as they do now. We will not have enough experienced Australian seafarers to take up these positions.

The National Maritime Training Partnership, which includes the Australian Maritime College at the University of Tasmania, in its submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport urged that the committee consider the effect that this bill would have on the next generation of seafarers in Australia, particularly Tasmanians, whose state has particular unemployment challenges. The National Maritime Training Partnership sought inclusions in the bill that would:

… help provide a pathway for the next generation of seafarers into meaningful positions of responsibility on board ships trading around the coast of Australia. Importantly this pool of qualified mariners will help provide for the next generation of mariners to fill positions ashore in education, regulation, marine pilotage and port management.

I particularly highlight marine pilotage, which I will return to in a minute. Having crews with local knowledge of shipping channels also aids in the environmental protection of Australian waters.

There have been a number of serious incidents in recent years that have put at risk our valuable environmental assets, such as the Great Barrier Reef—I say to a fellow Queenslander. In 2009, 230 tonnes of fuel oil, 30 tonnes of other fuel and 31 shipping containers containing 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate spilled into the Coral Sea north of Moreton Bay. The then Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, declared at the time that it was the worst environmental disaster Queensland had ever seen. The disaster was caused by unsecured cargo on the Hong Kong registered MV Pacific Adventurer. The spill washed ashore along the 60 kilometres of Queensland coastline, which included the Sunshine Coast—a great tourist spot—Moreton Bay, Bribie Island and Moreton Island, named after the same Lord Morton as my electorate is named after, with a different spelling.

In 2010 a 750-foot Chinese bulk coal carrier, MV Shen Neng1, ran aground east of Rockhampton. This vessel struck the Great Barrier Reef, scraping along the reef for a considerable distance and causing a very large grounding scar. The ship was 10 kilometres outside of the shipping lane. The vessel's fuel tank was damaged and an oil slick of heavy fuel oil ran for two nautical miles. Chemical dispersants were used to break up the oil slick. This incident alone posed a serious risk to our Great Barrier Reef.

As recently as this year, the ship's master of the China Steel Developer, a Taiwan flagged bulk carrier, was charged with failing to take on a pilot prior to navigating the Great Barrier Reef. The general manager of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Andrew Skeat, said about the incident:

For certain sections of the Great Barrier Reef and for particular types of vessels, the use of pilots is mandatory because they greatly enhance protection of animals, habitats and sensitive areas of the Marine Park, including coral reefs.

… … …

The potential environmental, economic and social consequences could have been severe if an unescorted voyage had gone wrong.

All three of these incidents occurred off the Queensland coastline, and we all know how important tourism is to the Queensland economy. As a Queenslander I am particularly concerned about damage to our local natural assets. These are very large vessels using the shipping lanes that surround our coastal waters and in some cases navigate through the Great Barrier Reef itself. Local knowledge of our waters and our environmental assets is vital. It is also vital that crews on board ships in our waters are not compromised by poorer working conditions which could lead to fatigue and bad decisions being made by those in charge of these very large vessels operating near important and valuable natural assets.

Another important consideration in terms of what this bill will impact on is the screening of shipping crews using our waters. It is a much more difficult task to screen foreign crews. The impact of this bill is that the majority of the mariner crews using our waters will be foreign. The cost of the extra screening that will be required has not been factored into the costs of this package, and neither can we effectively assess the efficacy of such background screens. This bill, far from fostering our Australian shipping industry, will give foreign flagged shipping an advantage over Australian flagged vessels. We heard this played out in the Senate a few weeks ago. Australian companies would be at a disadvantage in their own territory. In fact, there was the suggestion that Australian public servants were informing Australian shipping agencies that it would be to their advantage to get rid of their Australian crews and bring on foreign sailors. Australia does not allow other forms of domestic transportation methods, such as planes, trains, freight trucks and buses, to operate by using overseas registration or overseas pay conditions. Australia's shipping industry is important. And as I have seen from my background in looking at the cruise industry, if you do not have standards that are going to be enforced by regular audits and checks, then anything can happen when the ships slip beyond Sydney Harbour.

Workers in Australia's shipping industry are important and should be working for Australian pay and under Australian conditions. Our future generation of seafarers should be allowed to continue the rich history of Australian seafarers who have gone before them. Their skills should be honed through working on Australian flagged ships in local waters so that they can become the senior experienced seafarers who will protect our coastline into the future. It is better to have Australians working on our docks looking after decisions that are made about our cargo, because the reality is there will always be people who will try to smuggle things into Australia. It is better to have Australian seafarers making decisions about what goes on in the ships and on the docks rather than people with loyalty to foreign nations.

Our environmental assets, such as the Great Barrier Reef, are too important to risk. These should be protected to every extent that they can be via these laws. A little bit of economic nationalism goes a long way in this area. Our shipping regulations play a very important role in these protections. We do not want to have an escalation of the incidents I have detailed already. Work Choices on water should not go ahead, and that is why I will not be supporting this bill.

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