Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Gunaikurnai people, the traditional owners of the land known as the electorate of Monash. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

National Reconciliation Week gives us all an opportunity to play our part as we continue to try as a country to grapple with the mistakes of the past. Australia is shamed by the victimisation of our Indigenous peoples through the ongoing effects of colonisation. From the stolen generations to our system of democracy, numerous policies, interventions and commissions have failed to remedy entrenched disadvantage and social dislocation caused by the brutality of colonisation. We must face this squarely. We must acknowledge our past and ongoing role in the sufferings of First Nations peoples. Our communal responsibility is to build strong connections with our Indigenous communities, based on open communication and understanding. Imagine if the need for change were acknowledged and acted upon at a personal, community, state and national level. We could move mountains.

Our Indigenous peoples extended the hand of reconciliation when they gave us the generous Uluru Statement from the Heart. As a nation, we should show grace and embrace it. We need to humble ourselves and accept into our hearts and minds the wisdom of people who have lived on this land for more than 60,000 years. Reconciliation is defined as the restoration of friendly relations, and that is exactly what we as a nation and as individuals should be aiming for. As I have said before, including the voice of the First Nations people in national policy should be non-negotiable for the government. It is essential for national healing. What are we afraid of? Reconciliation is more than a word. It means nothing without action. This is just as I see it.

One of the vulnerabilities that we have, as was borne out in the pandemic—and I'm going to pull a lot of my conversation out of Robert Gottliebsen's article this week that talked about coastal shipping and international processes—is the fact that we do not have a homogeneous fleet of our own Australian flagged ships in times of trouble. The article says:

Over the past 20 or 30 years Australia has based its industrial and retail systems on a global "just in time" supply chain network.

And for the most part it worked and led to a vast array goods at low prices arriving when required, so reducing the need for large stocks. This gave consumers greater choice, curbed our inflation and boosted corporate profits.

And it made us complacent.

But in the pandemic, the system broke down and became much less reliable and far more costly. Australian companies are only now starting to tell the market how they are being affected.

Suddenly, in large areas of Australian society we are realising that in recent decades we have forgotten the lessons of our history.

In World War II, Australia also realised just how isolated we had become, and partly driven by BHP chief executive Essington Lewis, we established large industrial complexes—

and our own shipping fleet.

But now the pandemic and the Chinese bans on our exports appear to be combining to change our attitudes.

Australians are increasing their purchases of Australian-made goods—

leading to promotion of goods made locally.

Few Australians realised that our shipping lifeline was based on a very complex ownership and operational system with the ships owned in one country and registered in another.

…      …      …

Integrated into that global system was our own coastal shipping.

Unlike Canada and the US, we use global ships to undertake almost all our local shipping. In theory, local regulations prevent global shipping on the coast, but all that is required to use global ships is to ask permission. It is almost always granted. We have only token numbers of local ships.

…      …      …

Then came two unexpected developments. The first was that whereas the Covid-19 restrictions substantially reduced the demand for services, the demand for goods surged. We saw that occur dramatically in Australia with spending on home renovation and building. But it was a global trend.

…      …      …

Sometimes it seems as though the Chinese control the distribution of our goods because they control so much of the trade.

Our first tangible response—

which I applaud the government on—

has been to prevent the closure of the Geelong and Brisbane oil refineries. We realised that, while oil is not part of the container trade, the sort of forces we have seen in containers could just as easily be applied to oil tankers—especially if there is military conflict.

But the Australian vulnerability goes much further than simply oil. Our total international and local shipping is in the hands of the global shipping cartel complex. We have no independence whatsoever.

…      …      …

Retailers are now assessing the long-term attraction of promoting Australian-made goods. Like shipping, modern machinery has lessened the labour cost component.

In practical terms one of the lasting legacies of the Covid-19 pandemic might be that Australia will go back to its history and devise better ways to lessen the dangers of isolation.

The fact is we need our own Australian-flagged merchant fleet. Probably 12 ships. Too much to ask? Let's try for six, just to cover our bases. This is affordable. It protects us against dependence on others. And it lets us not repeat the mistakes of the past. Our leaders knew what was needed a century ago. A century ago, they knew what we needed. Are we today sleepwalking to chaos and further vulnerability?

I suffer from Dupuytren's disease, a hereditary disease that curls up the hands. If you've attended a nursing home and gone from room to room, you'll probably find people in that nursing home with curled up fingers. If you haven't seen it, you will. Those of my age do. To address the issue of my fingers curling up like that, every now and again I go to my plastic surgeon, and he cleans out the inside of my hands around the tendons and straightens out the fingers—so I can do that, instead of that, which can be very difficult when you go to shake hands and your hands are all curled up. As you can imagine, as a politician that's fairly difficult.

It's miraculous the way this master of manipulation of the body is able to work. His name is Tam Dieu. He's Vietnamese. I asked him one day, while they were putting me to sleep to do the next hand or the next finger or whatever: 'What's your background, Tam? You were born here, I take it?' He said: 'Oh, no. I was with my family in Vietnam, and my parents said, "You are to go with your uncle on a boat to Australia. There's nothing for you here, and we're in danger."' He went with his uncle, hopped on a boat and made the perilous trip to Australia. He arrived here penniless, with his uncle. No family, no education, no nothing. Now he's one of the most brilliant surgeons in Australia. He takes off all my cancer spots. A couple of you would be nearly old enough to know what we did to ourselves as children, got out in the sun and did all those things, so I have bits taken off me all the time. I asked him: 'How do you know which bits to take off? How much of it is instinct and how much of it is your skill?' He said: 'Russell, I take a bit off you before it becomes a health problem. At the moment it's only a skin problem. If I leave it, it will become a health problem, so I like to deal with that early. That's the way I work.' He's one of the most skilful, talented, gentle men I know. He'd be at the top of my tree. He was a boat person. He came by boat.

I'll tell you another story. I have a friend. She's been ill for a long time. I was talking to her about boat people, refugees and those sorts of things and these terrible, horrible people smugglers. And this woman, who's a lawyer, a hotelier, a builder, a creator, with talented kids, wealth, style and living the Australian dream, her parents came out here from Serbia. She said to me: 'Russell, if it weren't for people smugglers, I wouldn't be here. They smuggled us out of Serbia through the hills one night, got us out and that's how we got to Australia.' There are two sides to every story.

The contribution that refugees have made to this country should never be underestimated. How we treat them in this country, how we treat people in this country who have done nothing but seek a better life yet have been imprisoned for coming up to 11 years, is something that I as an Australian can't be proud of. We can't walk away. As a friend of mine once said, 'There comes a time when you can't walk past the pile of rubbish; you've got to clean it up.' It's time for this nation to look where the rubbish is, confront it and see how we're going to deal with the lives of individual people who may go on to make a marvellous contribution to this country and look at the opportunities we might give to people who are already here but not allowed to work when we are desperate for employees right across every sector of this nation because of the results of COVID. Why can't we be sensible and let them work? Let them work. It's not something that's so great to ask—that while someone on a bridging visa is here in this country they get an opportunity to work. The benefits for us are unending. We have nothing to fear from these people being employed while they are on a bridging visa. In fact, we need them right now. There's not a business that I know of that hasn't got staff shortages and opportunities for people right across the board. I'll leave those thoughts with you today. They may not go down well with the people who have the responsibilities, but that's just as I see it.

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