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

Because it is quite extraordinary—and I've lost him; Barnaby Joyce is showing me the loyalty he's showing the coalition from day to day on that side.

The truth is that this legislation is lousy legislation. When it comes to the variation of temporary licences, it essentially cannot be justified because, again, it is aimed at: what's the purpose of the legislation? For the many people out there who I'm sure are listening intently to this debate, wondering what TL and GL and some of these provisions are, I say to them that a lot of it's pretty simple. The measures in these amendments the government is trying to operate with this piece of legislation follow Minister Truss's disastrous legislation, which couldn't even get a second reading through the Senate—and I predict that this will also meet a similar fate. There isn't one thing—and I say to the minister that in his response it would be nice if he could point to one thing—in this legislation that is supportive of Australian industry. I've pointed to a range of measures in these amendments that, for example, change it from two days to 24 hours—changing it so that Australian ships don't have a capacity to bid—and a range of the other amendments I have spoken about. Can the minister point to one thing in this piece of legislation that is supportive of Australian industry? What each of the measures in this legislation has in common is that they're all designed to make it more difficult for Australian ships to compete with foreign ships.

And I say this: the party of Black Jack McEwen and the party of Doug Anthony wouldn't cop this sort of legislation, because, historically, one of the things that the Country Party had in common, I think, with the Labor Party in many instances was a sense of nationalism and a preparedness to defend Australian national interests, industries and jobs. There was actually that understanding there. Yes, there's a market, but this isn't a free market. You're asking Australian ships to compete around our coast doing Australian-only jobs. We're not talking about international trade. We're talking about taking freight essentially from one place in Australia to another place in Australia, just like a truck or a train, except one group has to pay Australian wages and conditions, has ships that are maintained to Australian standards, has environmental protections built in and has proper security clearances for everyone who works in the ships, versus a foreign ship that has foreign wages, foreign overheads and foreign maintenance conditions that aren't as good as those in Australia, and the foreign ship doesn't pay any tax, because it has a flag of Panama or some other flag of convenience on the back of it.

The fact is that not only are you saying, 'Oh, well, that's fair, we won't recognise there's a difference there'; you're also changing the rules in this legislation to make it harder for the Australian based ship to compete. There are real consequences. We won't have an Australian maritime skills base. We're an island continent, for goodness sake! The idea that that doesn't matter is just absurd. I say to the minister that there is an opportunity now to point to a single positive measure in this legislation that says, 'This is in the interests of Australian ships' capacity to compete.'

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