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

We have a proud maritime history in this country. We've spoken about the link between the merchant fleet and the naval fleet. At our time of greatest need, when John Curtin showed such extraordinary leadership in this country, we didn't have a major naval presence at all. When we were under threat, he built—in such a short period of time, during wartime—three destroyers, 14 frigates, 60 corvettes and 30,000 small craft. The other thing that happened under Curtin's leadership was that we were preparing craft and assisting both military craft and merchant craft vessels for our allies in Europe and in the United States. Nothing can state those linkages more than that acute period in which our very existence as a free and democratic nation was under threat. At that time, the Australian maritime sector grew, which then expanded into the postwar period under Chifley. Unfortunately, there wasn't the same long-term foresight under Menzies that had occurred under Chifley and that occurred in the United States. A very similar thing happened in the United States. That's the context of the Jones Act. It's the link between the merchant fleet and the military needs of the United States.

I said to the minister to point to one thing in the legislation that was positive about the Australian industry, but he's been unable to do so. That's because there isn't anything positive there. This is the latest tranche of Work Choices on water. This is about ideology and a sort of bizarre logic of, 'If we have no Australian shipping industry, we therefore will have no MUA members,' as opposed to, 'What are the opportunities, including the opportunities to build and construct ships here and around the coast? What's the potential for expansion of the manufacturing sector here in Australia?'

This is what Maritime Industry Australia Ltd say about whole of the legislation:

… there is nothing in the Bill to assist Australian shipowners compete with foreign ships that have all but unfettered access to coastal trades. We held low expectations on that front and unfortunately haven’t been disappointed there.

The regulatory impact statement of this legislation is very explicit about the goal of increasing the presence of foreign vessels around the coastline. It says:

… the current framework makes it unattractive for foreign ships to enter the coastal trading sector.

…   …   …

These amendments … will remove the barriers that currently face many foreign flagged vessels under the current system.

I spoke before about rail, road and other modes, and the disadvantages that they're at. I want to quote them. These are Freight on Rail Group members: Aurizon; the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which is owned by the government; Ark Infrastructure; Genesee & Wyoming; Pacific National; Qube Holdings and SCT Logistics. This is what they said in their submission:

… the proposed amendments have the potential to introduce an unreasonable competitive advantage to foreign ships that may choose to compete in the domestic freight market. This unreasonable competitive advantage arises as the proposed amendments allow foreign shippers to compete in the domestic freight market against land freight transport operators that have to comply with all laws and regulations. In particular, exemptions would allow foreign ships to incur substantially lower wages, conditions and associated workplace relations costs when compared to rail, road and Australian-based coastal shipping companies.

There it is. (Time expired)

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