Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

who go on to be harbourmasters and run ports and are very proud of making a contribution to the nation. Here in Australia we have the Australian Maritime College down at Launceston, a world-class facility. We have a very proud history as a maritime nation. The Australian flag's continued presence on the back of Australian ships crewed by Australian seafarers with Australian engineers and Australian captains is very important. These are not inconsequential matters for an island continent such as ours, which relies overwhelmingly upon shipping to deal with our imports and exports.

The shipping industry also has consequences for our coastal trading regime to take goods around the nation. The 'blue highway' is free, unlike the Hume Highway, the Bruce Highway, the Pacific Highway and other roads, where maintenance is required. Other sections of our transport industry—the rail and road sectors—are concerned about the consequences of a free-for-all, where they're being asked to compete with foreign flagged vessels operating with foreign and foreign conditions to transport those goods around our coast. That puts those transport operators, be they rail or road, at a significant disadvantage. Quite frankly it's an absurd idea to say that it's okay for a trucking company to come in with trucks that have been built, maintained and operated in the Philippines, operate from Brisbane and take goods down Highway 1 to Melbourne, pay Filipino wages and have Filipino overheads and costs, and compete with the Australian trucking operators. Why should the 'blue highway' be different from the Hume Highway? What's more, when it also happens in the rail sector, they will be considerably disadvantaged at a time when the government is talking about inland rail and the importance of rail transport. The ARA opposes this legislation. Why would the rail sector be involved in coastal shipping? They understand that when they have Australian costs and overheads they're at a massive disadvantage if they have to compete with another sector performing the same task through a different mode but with foreign costs and overheads.

There are a whole range of reasons that this legislation is flawed and should be rejected. The particular amendment we're debating shows that the government is so ideologically determined that they're prepared to redefine the whole definition of a voyage rather than apply a bit of common sense. This isn't the current minister's legislation, nor even the member for New England's legislation, but there has been no consultation with the opposition over this. When this was introduced—a long time ago now; more than a year—before even I gave my second reading speech I moved a procedural resolution to dismiss this and to have a proper consultation process, because I recognise that a bipartisan position would be far preferable. This is unsupportable. (Time expired)

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