Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is an island nation, and the waters that surround our island are the highway that ships travel to deliver goods to Australians and to take goods from Australia overseas. In actual fact, 99 per cent of shipping is based on trade. We have the longest coastline in the world and the fifth largest shipping task of any nation. Ten per cent of the world's trade by weight is carried by ships either to or from Australia, and what does this government want to do? It wants to destroy the Australian shipping industry. This government, or should I even say those on the other side of this House, have always had an ideological hatred of the Australian shipping industry. They have never appreciated its value to our nation. They do not get it. They do not understand how vitally important it is for Australia to have a strong shipping industry that has ships crewed by Australians.

I believe this legislation is driven by the Abbott-Turnbull government's ideological hatred of maritime workers and the Maritime Union of Australia. This government does not like the MUA, and it will go to any extent to destroy that union, even if it means destroying our shipping industry along the way, even if it means making sure that 1,000 Australian mariners are left without jobs. That is not a concern to this government. Unfortunately, this government is committed to introducing Work Choices on the water, as many of my colleagues have said before me. It is driven by the wishes and desires of the Business Council of Australia. Not only is this legislation not supported by the MUA and maritime workers and many of the industries associated with shipping, it is also not supported by the ship owners. So here we have a government pushing legislation through this House that will lead to job losses, and it will lead to a situation that is not supported by anyone in the industry. It will lead to a situation where we do not have an Australian shipping industry.

When I first saw this legislation I asked: 'What does it deliver to Australia? Will it make our shipping industry stronger?' I have already answered that—no. Will it lead to the development of some other industry? No, there is absolutely no evidence of that. Will it help Australian workers? This legislation condemns Australian mariners to unemployment, and I will touch a little bit more on that in a moment. Will it be of economic benefit for the country? Once again no. We are losing an industry and we are actually allowing Australian jobs to be replaced by mariners from overseas who receive very low wages and work in appalling conditions. There are many practices that take place on these ships of convenience that this government is so keen to see replace the shipping industry and the mariners that we have today.

What will it mean for the security of our nation? Australian mariners currently have to get a maritime security identity card, and every time they arrive at a port they have to present their cards. But foreign workers do not have the same requirement, so when it comes to security and monitoring those workers on ships, that does not even measure up.

I have to ask, 'What is the motivation?' I can only see that this motivation is driven by an ideological hatred of Australian mariners and of the union that supports those workers and by a total lack of commitment to an Australian shipping industry. I might add that this is very different to what is happening in other countries. For instance, in the United States they have the Jones Act, which bans foreign ships' crews from its coastal trade. Canada, Japan and nations of the European Union have similar practices in place. So here we are in Australia, with the largest coastline of any country in the world, deciding that we want to get rid of our shipping industry. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is a bad decision.

I do not know if any members on the other side of this House have ever been on a flag-of-convenience ship. Currently, there is the single-voyage permit and the continuing voyage permit, and then you have your Australian ships. I have been on one of these foreign flagged ships, and when you go onto these ships the conditions are nothing like the conditions on the Australian flagged ships. They are often just rust buckets, and the conditions that those workers live and work under are absolutely appalling.

When the former member for Shortland, my good friend the Hon. Peter Morris, was in this parliament he was chair of the then Transport , Communications and Infrastructure Committee. The deputy chair was Paul Neville, who was then the member for Hinkler. They did an inquiry into these flag-of-convenience ships, and the report that was brought down was the Ships of shamereport. There are a lot of new members on the other side of this parliament, and I suggest that they pick up that report and have a look at it because there is a lot of information in there that shows exactly the conditions that mariners on those ships live and work under.

This government just do not care. All they are doing is answering to their masters on the Business Council of Australia. They are not concerned about the shipping industry and not concerned about the workers. They certainly are not looking towards the economic stability of our country, looking towards the types of industries that we wish to have, looking towards the security of our nation or looking towards the fact that we need to have a vibrant maritime industry. We are an island nation, and this has implications when it comes to the security of Australia not only with allowing workers into the country and with the level of security checks on those mariners but also because we need to have a vibrant merchant navy in times of conflict or such.

I am yet to find one reason why this legislation should be supported. It is really evil legislation. It is ideological driven. It is extreme. It is pushing an extreme right-wing agenda. It removes reference to reviving the Australian shipping industry, which Labor put in place when they were in government because they could see the benefits of having a vibrant shipping industry in an island nation like Australia with ocean borders and with the coastline that we have here in this country.

This government's new law really extends the non-application of the Fair Work Act's standards to foreign workers on foreign ships in Australian waters and it significantly extends the application of Third World wages to coastal trade. This is about forcing shipowners to employ overseas workers and then pay them Third World wages. Those wages are, I think, about a third that of the wages that are paid to Australian mariners. If members on the other side were to take the time to read the Ships of shame report which Peter Morris brought down, in some cases they would find that invariably the workers do not even receive those wages. There have been numerous documentaries done on this particular issue, and to see Australia going down this track of being prepared to forsake our shipping industry is an absolute crime.

This bill deregulates the Australian domestic shipping industry by removing preference for Australian flagged and crewed ships operating in and around Australia. It really does symbolise the attitude of this government to Australian workers and jobs. Instead of the three-tiered system that there is at the moment, there is a single-tiered system for granting access to coastal shipping. This is to be able to work the Australian coastline for a 12-month period. It extends the period of exemption for non-domestic standards, and these ships will not even be required to have one Australian worker on them unless they are in Australian waters for more than 183 days.

When members on the other side of this House have time to think about this legislation and before they vote for it, they should think about Australian workers, like the man I was talking to last week who said, 'I get a decent wage, but I'm away from home for six weeks. Whilst I'm away, my wife has to look after the children. She does everything.' They actually have a disabled child, and there is enormous pressure on the family. He said, 'But I'm prepared to do that because I get the compensation that I get. If I lose my job, I don't know what I'll do.' It is similar to the situation of those mariners on the Alexander Spirit, who were told that they would be redundant when they got to Singapore, or like the department advising Bill Milby that he should sack his Australian crew and employ foreign workers.

This demonstrates this government's commitment to Australian workers and that is why the legislation that is before the House is Work Choices on the water, legislation that is going to undermine our shipping industry, legislation that is going to undermine Australian workers. It is bad legislation and no member of this parliament should support it. (Time expired)

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