Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the ANL Legislation Repeal Bill 2019, is a sad reminder of the demise of Australian shipping in this country. I will go back to the origins of some aspects of the shipping industry, particularly post-World War II, in Australia. Immediately after the war, the Australian Shipping Board was established to operate an Australian national fleet. In 1956, the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission took over the Australian Shipping Board's operations. At the time there were some 42 vessels, mainly cargo ships and bulk carriers, that operated in our waters. In 1989, the Australian National Line was established, and that took over from the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission.

In 1998, the Australian government sold the Australian National Line—or, at least, it sold the business and the trading name—to the French company CMA CGM, and that was effectively the end of a national shipping fleet in this country. At the time of the sale, ANL operated 12 vessels. It had been reduced to a very small player in the shipping market. It was also argued at that time that ANL was no longer viable and had been operating at a financial loss. Of course, the value of a national shipping line is not solely determined by the profit-and-loss statement. That is a very narrow perspective on value.

In post-World War II years, shipbuilding underpinned the growth and economy of Whyalla in South Australia. It created jobs right across the local economy, from shipbuilding to home construction and community services. The demise of Whyalla shipbuilding—it ended in 1978—has had a major economic impact on Whyalla and the Spencer Gulf region of South Australia.

More broadly, a national shipping line creates Australian maritime jobs. Not only does that employ Australians, but also, importantly, those crews pay tax to the Australian government, unlike the crews of all the other vessels that are not Australian-owned that operate in our waters.

It also ensures that maritime skills are not lost. It is never in the national interest to become completely dependent on overseas countries for specific skill sets. We are already seeing that with so many other skills where Australia is becoming dependent—indeed, reliant—on skilled workers from overseas, either because industries in this country have closed down, or because we have stopped training people due to the cuts made to vocational education and training institutions in this country.

The associated issue with foreign shipping operators is that they have been known to employ unskilled workers on wages and conditions likened to slave labour. Slavery in the Western world was outlawed 100 years or so ago, but as a nation it seems we turn a blind eye to slavery and worker exploitation by outsourcing to overseas entities work that could be done by Australians. In doing so, Australia is complicit to that exploitation.

There is, of course, a national security value associated with operating a national shipping fleet, as other speakers on this side of the House have already pointed out. In times of conflict or natural disaster, it is reassuring to know that, as an island nation so dependent on overseas exports and imports, we have a national shipping capability. That's why, in the lead-up to the 18 May election, Labor committed to the establishment of a strategic fleet of Australian flagged vessels and to stopping the abuse of temporary licences—which this coalition government has been so willingly prepared to issue.

In the midst of so much instability in the Middle East—and every day we hear new stories about what is going on there—Australia has around three weeks of fuel reserves in stock, effectively leaving Australia dependent on overseas operators for both the supply and the transport of fuel. A fuel shortage would cripple Australia, and yet we do not even have the ability to guarantee the transport of fuel from overseas, because we have no national shipping fleet. It's more than just an embarrassment; it is actually a major national security issue. As I move around my electorate, it is one of the issues that is of most concern to people I speak with. Most people are prepared to accept government decisions on a whole range of matters, but they simply cannot understand how our national government can allow Australia to be left so vulnerable—and, quite frankly, I don't understand how we can leave ourselves so vulnerable.

It is not good enough to say that, in the event of an emergency or a crisis, we will lean on our allies. They may not be in a position to assist us—albeit that they might want to. Yet we have allowed ourselves to fall into that position. As has already been pointed out by others, even under our international obligations we're expected to have a minimum of around 90 days of fuel supply in this country. For years that has not been the case. This is not a new phenomenon that has happened in recent months or even recent years because of instability in the Middle East; this has been the case for several years, and as a nation we have done nothing about it—and it's high time that we did.

Associated with national security comes the value of surveillance of Australian territorial waters by Australian crews, who would have a patriotic interest not only in ensuring Australia remains safe but also that biosecurity for our country is not jeopardised in anyway way. I have no doubt that Australian crews, once they are on board a ship and operating in Australian waters, and even beyond, would always be vigilant with respect to ensuring that Australia is not in any way put at risk by any party or by any other entity. Along with biosecurity risks is also the risk of environmental damage that has occurred in the past, and which, in all cases that I am aware of, has been caused not by Australian operated vessels but by foreign operated and foreign crewed vessels. They don't have the same interest in caring for our country as Australian crews would have.

To those who say that the Australian National Line was not profitable and that it should have been sold off, my response is that it is near impossible to put a dollar value on the national security, the biosecurity, the environmental security and the skills security associated with operating a national shipping fleet. We don't put a dollar value on the costs of our national security agencies or our defence forces—nor should we. Likewise, we should not simply dismiss the dollar value of entities because of the book value at the end of the financial year. Likewise, Australia should not ignore the national security value of maintaining a shipping fleet, which has other benefits for the country than just the transport of cargo.

One of those benefits I'm going to refer to is related to the transport of livestock from this country to overseas destinations. It was only last month that this parliament passed legislation to appoint an Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. That appointment was made necessary because of the abuse of export animals that had occurred for many years in this country, particularly with respect to the exporting of sheep. We had the case of the Awassi Express in 2017, which was probably the latest issue that triggered the current public debate on live sheep exports.

We appointed an Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports in response to animal welfare issues which arose because those sheep were being transported by foreign owned and foreign crewed vessels. Had they been exported on Australian owned and Australian crewed vessels, it is highly unlikely that the sheep would have suffered, and the sheep would probably not have died—or at least not in the numbers they did—and we might not have had the need to appoint an Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. That position also comes at a cost, but I'm sure it's not being factored in when we talk about the cost of maintaining a shipping fleet in this country. It's a classic example of sometimes needing to look beyond the direct costs associated with a particular industry sector.

As other speakers have already pointed out, 99 per cent of all imports to and exports from Australia are transported by ship. It's also been said time and time again that Australia is an island nation—and that's absolutely true. But, more than that, it's an island nation that imports and exports a considerable amount of products every year. In fact, we have the fourth-largest shipping freight task in the world. Our whole economy depends on the exports from this country. We are one of the biggest exporters of minerals, gas and the like, not to mention the imports that we now have to bring in from overseas, literally on a daily basis. Yet Australia has no input into the transport of those goods, whether imports or exports. It's all managed by overseas entities.

I wonder how many other countries would allow themselves not only to be so vulnerable but to miss out on such an important industry sector. I doubt that other countries who had the same opportunity as Australia to develop an industry, based on shipping exports, would not have done so. Yet we in Australia are prepared to miss out on those opportunities because we simply look at the bottom line of a particular industry sector.

Of course, Labor supports this legislation in principle, although I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Ballarat. But it certainly highlights the bigger issue here, and that is that we as an island nation have allowed ourselves to become so dependent on other countries for the import and export of our goods—goods which sustain our economy, goods which create opportunities for us to build our economy on and goods which we should always be in control of.

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