Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I do apologise for delaying the House. I thank the member for Adelaide for very kindly stepping in to speak in my absence.

Labor are supporting the thrust of the Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016. I really want to use this debate as an opportunity to raise our deep concern about what is happening with the government's policies on the granting of visas and how this must be compromising safety and security in our ports and in our coastal waters. I find it almost incomprehensible that we could be jumping up and down and talking about the degree of concern that we have about maritime and aviation safety—I will be focusing on the maritime issues today—while at the same time we are opening the floodgates to people coming into this country with very minimal, if any, checks whatsoever.

In their ideological determination to crush the union movement and to crush working conditions for seafarers, the government, led in particular in this area by Minister Michaelia Cash, have been freeing up the introduction of poorly paid foreign workers into Australian coastal waters. We get a great deal of correspondence from seafarers—from mariners down to deckhands—complaining about what they are seeing. They are obviously concerned about their employment levels and their opportunities for employment and the opportunities for younger people to gain experience in the maritime industry, but they are also concerned about this disjunction in safety requirements. They are currently going through a new regime of safety requirements, under which it is no longer sufficient just to carry a maritime security identification card with you. The new regulations require the card to be worn externally, and there are significant penalties if you are found to be walking in a maritime security area without your security card being attached to your person in the regulated way. At one level, we see that the legislation before us today is focused not just on terrorism but on organised crime. Yet, at the same time, as I said, we are seeing a whole new class of foreign workers who are not being scrutinised in that same way, not required to meet these security standards and, at the same time, are being paid appallingly low wages.

We could look to the Australian crews that have now lost their jobs on the freight that goes between Kwinana and Portland for Alcoa, where we carry the bauxite over to Victoria for aluminium smelting, and, likewise, the shipping between Weipa and Gladstone. These were tasks that, until three to six months ago, were done by Australian maritime workers. They are tasks that are now being performed by foreign workers who are working for around US$3 an hour—appallingly low rates of pay. Many of the foreign seafarers who are working on these vessels coming into Australia are reporting to their Australian fellows that they are at sea for over a year. A number of captains and pilots were telling us last night that they are working with foreign crews who are just completely exhausted—Filipinos who have been away from home and at sea for over 380 days.

If we are concerned about organised crime, surely we would think that people who are highly stressed out because of the long time that they have been away from home and are being paid appallingly low wages might be in the very circumstances, the very environment, where they would be ripe to be exploited by organised crime. These vessels could well become the environments where we see organised crime being introduced to, extended in and operating within this country.

It just seems to be, for us, a massive disjunct here. On one hand, we have the desire, the need, the urgency, to deal with organised crime. I have no doubt that we have major problems with organised crime. I have no doubt that our drug laws have enhanced and provided a business model for organised crime for the last hundred years, and so there is no hesitancy on my part or on the part of the opposition to say that we really need to tackle this problem. But what we are doing on the other hand, in opening up and reducing the controls over the people who are coming into our ports and plying trade on our coastal waters, is at complete odds with what the proposed intention of this legislation is. We are bringing more and more people in without any security clearances and we are putting them in very difficult and financially trying circumstances, and again, as I said, we are creating the ecology where organised crime could indeed flourish.

Another factor that we see and another demonstration of this is the sheer number of vessels that are now originating from overseas and plying their trade. There were 7,732 vessels that originated from overseas and plied their trade here in the last six month period and only around 2½ thousand of those, approximately a third of those 7,732 vessels, were actually checked by our officials. That gives you some idea of how big a problem this indeed might be.

We see desertions occurring because of the increased number of vessels and the worsening conditions that are being experienced on these vessels. As international freight rates are going down, we are seeing a very real race to the bottom in international shipping where wages and conditions are declining, and, as a result of that, we are seeing more and more desertions. In the six-month period to December 2015, there were 11 reported desertions from foreign ships in Australia, but, in talking to maritime workers and officers last night, they believe that is a very significant understatement of the number of desertions.

There are a whole range of issues that we could discuss. There are safety ramifications with the ways in which we are allowing untrained workers on these vessels. As I said, because the freight rates are so low internationally, it is a race to the bottom. Ship pilots who are engaged to help steer ships into port are telling us about the incapacity and the lack of knowledge that they are encountering on the part of the captains and crews of these vessels and the fact that these people have been working such long hours that they are exhausted and the fact that they have minimal English and are unable to respond appropriately to the instructions of the pilots. They are seeing now in our ports and in our channels as they are trying to direct these vessels into and out from shore that there are increasing numbers of near misses.

We have a very real problem. It is a problem that has been exacerbated by the absolute obsession of this government to drive down the influence of unions, drive down the conditions for people in the maritime sector and, indeed, drive away jobs. Just looking at the temporary work visas that are being granted, the increase in particular of the use of the 400 visa is quite extraordinary. Those visa numbers went up from just 6,000 in the year 2012-13 to 54,688 in 2014-15. That was a massive jump. Now that we are seeing a pro rata basis for the 400 visa this year we can expect to see around 71,000 of these visas being granted. They are supposedly for skilled workers. We know if the minister gets her way we are going to see no requirements for visas at all. So there will not even be the minimal controls we have at the moment in the issuing of these 400 visas, and special category visas will disappear. We will have absolutely open season. People will be coming and going without us having any knowledge of who they are.

How can you plausibly argue that you are worried about our ports and our airports being used by organised crime when you are actually seeking to completely and utterly deregulate the entry of foreign crews into this country, you are completely and utterly failing to instigate even the most basic and routine checks on ships that are arriving in this country and you are encouraging an employment environment on ships of shame where people are worked extraordinarily long hours for extraordinarily low pay? We are indeed creating all of the conditions that will see organised crime thrive and prosper. The modest measures that we have introduced here are not going to be at all capable of standing up against the ecosphere that we have created in this deregulation of the maritime environment.

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