Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, I want to quote from the government official modelling, the cost-benefit analysis, in the explanatory memorandum at page 156. This applies to the preferred option 6. It says:

Many of the operators currently operating under the Australian General Register would likely re-flag their vessels in order to compete with the foreign operators who enjoy the benefit of comparatively lower wage rates. Australian seafarer jobs would be adversely affected as Australian operators re-flag from the Australian General Register.Ship operators are likely to replace Australian seafarers (paid under EA rates) with foreign seafarers (paid under ITF rates).

I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that there was some considerable debate, including in the Senate legislation committee, about the implications of this legislation. In another contribution, I will go to the evidence of Mr Bill Milby and others, which was presented to that committee. Here we have evidence—not from someone else but from the government's own cost-benefit analysis in the explanatory memorandum—making it clear, and I quote again for the benefit of the minister, that operators:

… would likely re-flag their vessels in order to compete with the foreign operators who enjoy the benefit of comparatively lower wage rates.

I say to the minister that there in black and white are the implications of this legislation before this parliament for Australian jobs. It is beyond comprehension that a minister would bring this legislation to this House when it is so clear what the implications are. So I ask the minister: does he agree with this official government analysis in the explanatory memorandum, which says that if this legislation is carried:

Ship operators are likely to replace Australian seafarers (paid under EA rates) with foreign seafarers (paid under ITF rates).

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In response to the shadow minister: in assessing what jobs are going to be gained and what jobs are going to be lost, you have to make a whole series of assumptions, and there is a great deal of room for variations in what those assumptions will be. For instance, I have heard members opposite talking about their being only 70 jobs left in Australian shipping as a result of this legislation. Clearly, that is absurd. The reality is that it in some cases there will be Australians on vessels that are not on vessels under the existing regime and that in other places there will be changes, in registration et cetera, that will have some impact.

While we are quoting, can I go to the regulatory impact statement, which I think makes the most telling comment of all in relation to this legislation. It says that the net economic benefit over 20 years from the adoption of this option will be of the order of $667 million. In other words, the gains to the Australian economy are very, very substantial indeed. They will come not just from within the shipping industry itself but because of the jobs that will not be lost on the Australian mainland because our shipping rates are uncompetitive. They will come from industry that is attracted to operate in Australia because we have a more competitive industry. The net employment situation is likely to be beneficial to our country, because we will not be losing as many jobs in this country from manufacturing and from a whole range of key industries that simply cannot compete with imported products, because of the cost of shipping. There are many examples, which were taken to the Senate and which have been reported all over the place, about Australian commodities not being able to compete with imports because of the cost of domestic shipping. We have classic stories, like it being cheaper to bring sugar from Thailand to Melbourne than to bring it from Mackay to Melbourne and it becoming cheaper to bring cement direct from China rather than to move it between one Australian port and another. That is costing jobs on the mainland. It means we cannot make cement and that our sugar producers do not have access to markets that otherwise they would have access to. All of that has to be taken into account in making assessments about what the best thing is for our national economy.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am somewhat disappointed that the minister chose not to respond to the very specific quote that I used from his own legislation and that he is asking us to vote for. I also refer to the legislation at page 75 and 76 of the explanatory memorandum in the RIS. The government evaluates the savings there of its preferred option. At the bottom of page 75 and the top of page 76, the combined savings are evaluated. What it shows is that some $19 million in the preferred RIS—88 per cent of the savings—are from 'labour cost savings' and $2.4 million—the other 12 per cent—are so-called 'deregulatory savings'. The minister has made a fair bit of so-called red tape issues. What his own legislation shows and what the RIS of the preferred option shows is that 88 per cent of the savings that the government says will come from this legislation are a direct result of the difference between Australian wages and foreign wages. That is what it shows: almost nine in every $10. That includes, of course, taking away workers from their current coverage under the Fair Work Act.

We on this side of the House have used the analogy of the difference between the 'blue highway' and the Hume Highway. If freight is taken from Sydney to Melbourne down the Hume Highway, Australian wage rates apply. The Australian truck industry safety standards of the government apply. But, if it is taken on the 'blue highway'—again, a domestic freight task from Sydney to Melbourne—then foreign wage rates will apply. I wonder where the minister draws a distinction between the 'blue highway' and the Hume Highway. If he accepts the logic that lower wages are lower cost and, therefore, should be allowed to be paid then why is it that we do not allow for Filipino or other truck drivers from Third World nations—the sort of people who are brought in on flags of convenience to work on ships that are registered in flags of convenience—to drive trucks down the Hume Highway and be paid foreign wage rates? The implication for Linfox, for Toll and for other Australian truck operators is that they would go out of business.

The implication for the Australian shipping industry if they have to compete with foreign wages being paid on the domestic freight task is that they will not be able to compete. I go back to my previous contribution. That is why the legislation says very clearly that when you take these two things together ship operators are likely to replace Australian seafarers with foreign seafarers. That is the logic of this government's own legislation. That is the very purpose of this legislation. I would ask the minister to respond very specifically to the savings that are there at page 75 and page 76 of the legislation, which is the explanatory memorandum.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, my response has to include an element of my previous answer in that the reality is that the current situation is clearly not working. The number of registered ships has halved. Since this legislation has been in, the volume of Australian shipping capacity has reduced by 63 per cent. The current system is not working. It is not working for roads; it is not working for seamen. And it is certainly not working for Australian industry, because the reality has been that our manufacturing has become less competitive rather than more competitive. The number of seamen and, I presume, therefore, the number of members of the Maritime Union—who were obviously key people in drafting this legislation; they took the credit for it at the time and subsequently—must be smaller now than when this legislation was brought in, because there are fewer people employed in their trade. I think that is disappointing and it is something that I want to reverse.

Comparisons between the shipping industry and the rail and road industries do not stack up. Shipping is competing against shipping. But there is a domestic task where the various modes of transport can be involved and can therefore deliver the most economic movement of freight around the country, and they should be encouraged to go towards the most economic element. The obvious facts are that, unless shipping can pull its weight, unless we can have as many ships and, indeed, more ships involved in trade between our major ports then there are going to be more trucks on the road and, hopefully, more trains in the train system. We will have to spend billions of dollars on upgrading the roads and the railway lines so that we are able to effectively meet that task. Currently, what is happening is that business just ceases to exist. It cannot be competitive. We are bringing in, say, cement or sugar from Asia when it could be made and produced in Australia. Therefore, the wage level of the people engaged in transporting it around the country is in fact at an international wage level. They are at that level because we have not been able to maintain an effective Australian shipping industry.

So what we want to do is get rid of some of the red tape that revolves around the system that was legislated a couple of years ago and that has effectively made it so that the permit arrangements are unable to operat We believe in a second register. We supported it at the time that the government introduced it. But there is not a single ship on that register because there is red tape associated with it that is unacceptable to any shipowner. So we want to get away from it. Then it will not be a contest about whether or not we are competing between Australian wages paid in a truck or the part B wages paid on a ship; it will be whether or not there are Australians employed in a task or whether we are instead importing the product from China, Thailand or some other nation. I would prefer to have Australian jobs involved in shipping the product around our shores rather than importing products from overseas, shipped here exclusively by people on international wages.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that, in his response, the minister, when he did go to the specific question that I raised, said that the current legislation was not working for roads. He went on to not address at all, in my view, the absolute parallels that are there between the domestic freight task on sea, on rail and on road, and how, if you allow foreign wages to be paid by foreign companies competing against Australian wages and Australian companies, you destroy the level playing field. It is not rocket science here. It is demonstrated by the government's own legislation, indeed.

I hope the minister appreciates the fact that I am being very specific about what I am asking here in referring to the legislation, as is appropriate for the way that consideration in detail should be conducted. I refer the minister to page 152, to the cost-benefit analysis, which is the minister's own official modelling, and to table 5.15. It says that the preferred option, which is option 6, will have the following effect on the Bass Strait non-bulk trade. For the Tasmanians who might be present or listening to this, they might want to think before they vote on this legislation both here and, importantly, in the Senate. The official government modelling now uses a base case expectation of 100 per cent Australian crew. The preferred option, and the basis of the bill, shows 35 per cent Australian crew and 65 per cent mixed crew—that is, a 35 per cent reduction from the circumstance of there being 100 per cent. Given that it is the official modelling, has the government estimated how many actual seafarer jobs in the Bass Strait trade will be lost under the legislation?

The evidence before the Senate inquiry was that there were almost 400 seafarer jobs in the Bass Strait trade now and that most would be lost under the government's modelling. I want to ask whether the minister agrees with the modelling in the legislation that assumes the following with respect to the preferred option as it applies to the existing vessels in the Bass Strait non-bulk trade. The top of page 152 says this:

… we assume 4 vessels will register under a foreign register to reduce operating costs.

So it is very clear what they are suggesting in this legislation. Minister, which vessels does your official modelling assume will reflag from Australian flagged ships to foreign flagged ships? It is there in the assumptions in this legislation. Does the minister agree that the motivation for reflagging is the difference between Australian based wages and foreign wages? I might allow the minister to respond.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My understanding was that the model did actually identify for which vessels there was a likelihood they might change their flag and which ones were less likely to do so. I do not have that information in front of me but I am happy to provide it to the member at some later stage. But, having said that, it is modelling. Modelling is modelling. It relies on certain assumptions. Sometimes the assumptions are fulfilled and sometimes they are not. Indeed, there have been predictions made in some of the modelling that certain vessels in other places may change their flag, and the Australian owners have subsequently said that they would not be doing that. Assumptions have to be made in preparing this kind of modelling. The key assumptions, however, come quite clearly down in the regulation impact statement that this legislation will have benefits of around two-thirds of $1 trillion to the Australian economy over the next 20 years. That is a benefit to the Australian economy that I thought we all should want to grasp.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To assist the minister, my understanding is that the assumptions assume that two SeaRoad vessels and two Toll ships will reflag. Indeed, the evidence from SeaRoad before the legislation committee was that, as a result of the former government's legislation, they were about to invest in further investment in ships, which would have, of course, created jobs in Tasmania.

While we are on job losses—which is the key element here—at page 150 of the part of the cost benefit analysis the modelling in table 5.14 says that the preferred option, option 6, will have the following effect in cruise shipping. The base case now is 40 per cent Australian crewed—that is, 40 per cent of the cruise ships that operate around the Australian coast employ Australians. For option 6, the preferred option and the basis of the bill, the expectation is for zero Australian crew—zero. That is what is there in the legislation.

I refer it back to the minister, because it is quite an extraordinary statement to have in the legislation, particularly in the context of the evidence before the Senate inquiry from Mr Bill Millby of North Star Cruises, which I might take up as the next issue with the minister. But, firstly, I would ask him to respond to table 5.14 and I ask: how can the minister possibly defend bringing in legislation before this chamber that makes such recommendations.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Large cruise vessels are exempt from the requirements under the current legislation, and there is no change proposed in that regard. My personal view is that there is a market for cruises at the top end of the range for wholly Australian run operations. I think there is potential for that kind of niche market to be effectively filled by a skilled and well-managed entrepreneur, and that sort of arrangement can be successful in the market. I think that should be encouraged wherever it can be done. But the reality is that the cruise market in this country will continue to grow—it is very popular at the present time. One of the really important things in this legislation for the cruise industry is that for the first time they will be able to have their vessels dry-docked and serviced in Australia, where previously they would have had to be imported. I see this legislation as creating more Australian jobs in the maintenance and servicing of vessels—and indeed major overhauls and modification and refits of those vessels. There is real potential for Australia, which has good skills in this area, to be able to create extra jobs, and that is part of building a stronger economy.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To respond to the minister's last point: that is the consequence of removing any distinction in real terms between Australian flagged ships and foreign flagged ships in their ability to operate and to be present around the Australian coast. To argue that that is a plus is quite disingenuous. I met with the minister and indicated that, if the minister had practical suggestions to support Australian industry and Australian jobs, the opposition would certainly be willing to consider them.

When it comes to cruise shipping, we have the difference between 40 per cent Australian crews—because the large cruise vessels are exempt and are not part of the regime that applies for other vessels—and an expectation in the government's own modelling of zero per cent Australian crews. That fact indicates that it is the full expectation of the government that the cruise shipping industry with an Australian flag on the back will simply disappear.

That was the evidence given by North Star Cruises, particularly Mr Bill Millby. His submission was very clear. Does the minister accept Mr Millby's statement to the inquiry on 20 May 2015 that the following happened? I will read from Mr Millby submission.

The Executive Director's advice to me during that discussion was that if NSCA wanted to remain competitive with the foreign owned and crewed ships it should—quote "consider taking out a ship 'True North' off the Australian Shipping Register, re register the ship in a suitable foreign country, lay off our Australian crew and hire a cheaper foreign crew". When she suggested this I told her that I could not believe the suggestion she made and she said quote "to remain competitive in the world that is what we should do". At that point I asked for and was granted a meeting with her in her Canberra office to further discuss the issue—prior to the Legislation Amendment Bill being tabled.

Then on 16 June 2015 Mr Millby be met with Judith Zielke and Michael Sutton and the account of that meeting is this:

I asked how they expected Australian expedition ship owners such as NSCA to compete with the foreign crewed ships and remain in business and they suggested the following:-

1. First, take "True North: of the Australian shipping registry

2. Registered "True North" in a foreign country, and Re-flag our ship "True North" with a foreign flag.

3. Then replace the Australian crew (apart from the captain and the chief engineer) with foreign crew who would not be governed under the Australian labour laws and the Australian "Fair work Act"

4. The foreign crew would also be trained in a foreign country—

not Australia, saving more money.

This follows the statement from Tony Briggs, who was the head of the Cairns based Coral Princess group. He said he was selling out to foreign interests in anticipation of this legislation. Mr Briggs said:

There will never be another passenger ship built in Australia if there is no certainty on how we can operate. It is exporting jobs.

He did that with his business.

It is extraordinary that this evidence is not from the Labor Party or the MUA. This is evidence from businesses—the people who actually operate the cruise ship industry—the people who create jobs particularly in north-west Australia and in Far North Queensland. They are simply saying that this legislation anticipates that this would occur. It is not surprising that the bureaucrats told Mr Millby exactly what was in the legislation and that he had a choice of going out of business or reflagging his ship. Mr Millby was the subject of considerable criticism from yourself, Deputy Prime Minister, and the then Prime Minister in a totally inappropriate way. So I ask the Deputy Prime Minister: why is it that the operators, including Mr Milby, have got it wrong? It is very clear from the legislation, from the evidence that was given before the committee and from the FOI material that was tabled in the Senate from Ms Zielke and Mr Sutton, who confirmed that was an option that was put forward to Mr Milby. Of course, he did have another option: to just go out of business. That was the other option that was presented. What other option does Mr Milby have in order to compete with foreign flagged ships, with foreign crews, paying foreign wages in the competitive environment that is the cruise ship industry in the Kimberley?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, let me clarify something, because my advisers think I may have said something that I did not intend to say in relation to the large cruise vessels that are exempt, under the previous arrangements, from the requirements of the act. Under our act, of course, they are actually brought into the act, but they will be eligible for their 12-month permits, so it will have no impact on the composition of the cruise.

Moving on to the commentary about North Star cruises, frankly, all the information that anyone could want to see is available on the public record. What was not provided or listened to during the Senate hearings was sought by the member opposite through a freedom of information request, and those documents were all provided. So there is nothing being hidden whatsoever. I can do little more than repeat the comments that I made previously. My department has confirmed to me in writing—and the shadow minister has seen the letter—that at no stage was Mr Milby advised of any course of action. Being apprised of the various options available does not constitute advice of a particular course of action. I confirm again today that at no stage was Mr Milby advised—and I quote from the shadow minister's speech in the second reading debate:

… he should re-register his vessel overseas and sack his 50 Australian staff and replace them with cheap foreign labour.

Departmental officials testified as such before the Senate committee hearings into this bill, and this was reaffirmed by written advice from my department to me, which, for the benefit of the House, I will quote:

Commercial advice was not provided and no particular course of action was recommended to the company.

Ultimately, of course, these are commercial decisions for the owners of Mr Milby's company to make. The company has been competing with international cruise vessels for a long time, and I am sure it will continue to be able to do so into the future.

Additionally, I should note that under the government's proposed reforms it is not an option for someone to put a full foreign crew on a cruise vessel in Australia if they want to operate year-round on Australian shores—that is not permitted under the act. So that casts some doubt on the veracity of the testimony.

Finally, I reject any suggestion that I have been critical of Mr Milby. I admire the work that his company does and I think that it adds a dimension to a cruise in that part of Australia that adds significantly to our tourism reputation. I certainly wish him well for the future. It is true that a number of the state governments, and the Northern Territory in particular, want to open up that business to competition from vessels that may have a foreign flag. They think it is rather silly that someone has to travel up to Timor or Singapore or Indonesia to bring on provisions and load the vessel when they could do that in Darwin and therefore Australian jobs would be created on the land in the Northern Territory.

Those are the competing interests that are brought up in these kinds of debates. What we want to do as a government is provide a fair opportunity for all businesses to prosper in this country and to take advantage of the opportunities of our market, and to ensure that other people around the world as well can enjoy the magnificence of the north-west Australian scenery, and indeed other parts of regional Australia. So having more vessels operating around our shores will certainly create jobs in the tourism industry on land, and that also has to be taken into account in assessing the value of particular options. But, from my perspective, I was not present at the conversations that were allegedly held, but I have been given the word of my respected senior officers and I have no reason to doubt it.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the Deputy Prime Minister knows very well the distinction that he is drawing. The letter from Mr Mike Mrdak, the secretary of the department that was subject to the FOI application—which was only granted, it must be said, after a Senate direction was carried by a majority of the Senate—has in it very carefully chosen words. It says:

Commercial advice was not provided.

It says that and I accept that. It is not up to a department to give advice as to the running of a company. What it does confirm, however, are the various options available under the new framework and the option that was available and that was presented very clearly to Mr Milby. I do not know if the Deputy Prime Minister watched Mr Milby give evidence before the Senate. This was not a seasoned political operator; this was a businessman from Western Australia who went out of his way to attend the launch of the policy by the Deputy Prime Minister. He approached the Deputy Prime Minister for advice and was referred by the Deputy Prime Minster himself to Ms Zielke, who was at the launch at the curiously named Shipping Australia

In great Orwellian tradition, Shipping Australia represents the non-Australian shipping industry. This indicates that Australians want a shipping industry—that is why Shipping Australia call themselves Shipping Australia rather than 'Foreign Shippers'.

There is an important role for foreign shipping in this country—we do not argue that. The essential argument here is very clear, and the flaw in this legislation is very clear—the minister exposed it with his last contribution when he said 'we want fair opportunities for Australian business.' But this legislation does not present fair opportunities. It will have businesses operating side-by-side, working the same routes, whether it be in the freight industry around our coast or in the cruise ship industry, one of them paying Australian wages and their competitor paying cheaper foreign wages. In an industry where the margins are not substantial, that means that the Australian ship, to be able to compete, will have to remove the Australian flag and replace it with a foreign flag and replace their Australian workforce—with a couple of exceptions, I accept—with a foreign workforce being paid foreign wages. That is the purpose of the legislation. That is what the modelling says in this legislation.

It did not take Mr Milby to expose this—it is there in the legislation. Mr Milby's evidence made it, if you like, a much more retail discussion—it put a face to the consequences. I congratulate Mr Milby on his courage in standing up for Australian jobs. One of the things Mr Milby said in his evidence was yes you can do that, but he wants Australians to show visitors, whether they be from other parts of Australia or overseas, the great wonders of the Kimberley and the Australian coast—our pristine natural environment. That is why this is important. (Extension of time granted) Page 75 of the RIS of the preferred option says under the heading 'Costs':

The modelling undertaken for the cost-benefit analysis did not include the cost of the potential loss of Australian seafarer jobs.

It is extraordinary, Minister, that you have legislation before this parliament that says that 88 per cent of the savings will be due to labour cost savings, that says clearly what the job losses are estimated to be by sector and region, but which has no analysis of the economic consequences of those Australian job losses. I would have thought it was appropriate to have modelling of the following, at least: firstly, what are the consequences of the fact that you have less money in the economy as a result of Australian seafarers who live and work and have families and spend their income here in Australia being replaced by foreign crews who do not live and spend money here and create jobs in the local supermarket and local retail outlets, or buy services here in Australia; secondly, what are the consequences, therefore, of less GST being paid because of the fact that you are removing the income of those Australian workers; thirdly, what is the cost of less income tax being paid; and, fourthly, what is the cost of higher welfare costs? Northern Tasmania, in particular, has higher unemployment rates than is the average around Australia. The minister has accepted that the evidence in the modelling assumes that two SeaRoad and two Toll ships from Tasmania will re-flag, replacing their Australian workforce, with a couple of exceptions, with foreign workers. That leads to higher unemployment benefits and social security costs. Social costs occur when you have higher unemployment. The other area that does have higher unemployment than other parts of Australia is Northern Australia—Cairns and around the north-west of Australia. What are the social consequences of that loss? It is beyond me why the RIS of the preferred option did not undertake the modelling of the costs of 'the potential loss of Australian seafarer jobs'. I wonder whether the minister can respond to that.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The obvious response is that what has happened as a result of the uncompetitive nature of Australia's shipping industry is that the number of people employed in shipping is now down to just over 1,000 people. Presumably, if you go back far enough, there were tens of thousands involved in domestic shipping. Certainly over recent times, since the legislation introduced by the previous government, the number of ships with coastal licences has dropped from 30 to 15, and the number on the transitional register has dropped from 16 to 8. How many jobs were lost as a result of that? How many jobs were lost as a result of the changes introduced by the previous government?

I move on to the job losses occurring as a result of the fact that our domestic shipping industry has been uncompetitive. That has meant that jobs on the land have been lost because they have been unable to be competitive with imported products. But when you have, for instance, sugar coming from Thailand to Melbourne instead of from Mackay to Melbourne, the jobs that are created in Thailand as a result of producing that sugar for the people of Melbourne are jobs that are not being created in Mackay because there was an alternative source of supply. When the cement industry has to close operations in Australia because it cannot be competitive with Chinese cement that is coming in on internationally-flagged vessels which are paying international wages, those are jobs lost in Australia. So the equation is not simply restricted to who may be on a particular boat. It has to be examined in relation to the whole of the economy, and, when it comes to the RISs, that is the basis upon which they are prepared. The RIS has been prepared with a declaration from the Office of Best Practice Regulation as meeting all of the government's RIS requirements—the same requirements that the previous government had in place and presumably with the same kind of findings that there were in the RIS which was prepared by the previous government when they introduced their legislation in this regard. So examining the impacts of legislation in isolation ignores the flow-on effects that there have been as a result of us having an uncompetitive shipping industry.

I want our industry to be competitive, not just because I want to save jobs on the mainland, although that is very important, but I also want them to be able to be effective in ensuring that we have a more competitive transport system in our country. I would like to see the containers that are currently going on trucks from Melbourne to Brisbane every night travelling on a ship. Many of them are not particularly time sensitive in the length of their journey. Those are the sorts of vessels that should be going on ships, but we do not have ships that are able to undertake that task. I hear reports from time to time about somebody who is going to build a ship or might build one in the future, or that they are all going to flock in and join the second register initiative—an idea which of course I welcomed—but the second register has been a complete flop. There have been a number who have expressed interest, but, when they find out they have to pass everything by the MUA and have to have a whole set of regulations in place, it just becomes too hard and they go away.

I hope that with our new arrangements those people may be encouraged to join the second register and that they may be encouraged to employ Australians, because if we keep going the way we are—with the 30 ships down to 15, down to who knows what it will be in another two years time—then we will have no-one being trained to be a pilot to take vessels through the Great Barrier Reef. We will have no-one being trained with the capabilities to run tugs around our harbours. We will have no-one with the skills that are necessary for us, as an island continent, to be able to maintain effective transport systems around our nation.

We are not in the business of destroying jobs. We are in the business of trying to make a more competitive shipping industry that employs more Australians. I have to say that I sometimes wonder why some of these unionists who have lost their jobs in the sugar industry or in the cement manufacturing industry are not complaining that their jobs have been sacrificed for a guy who is on 26 weeks holiday a year on a ship somewhere or other. One job is being traded for another, and I think the union movement is being disingenuous if it counts the job that they want to try and save on the ship when it is costing jobs—eight, 10, a dozen or who knows how many—in land-based industries.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer the Deputy Prime Minister to page 80 of this legislation as part of the RIS. It relates directly to the comments that he has just made, and it says:

Stakeholders called for policy certainty to create greater certainty in business planning and perceived a propensity in Australia to change shipping regulations on a semi-regular basis, which they felt posed a high sovereign risk for coastal shipping operations in Australia.

The thing is that the legislation that this is amending was from 2012. It amended—100 years after the Navigation Act—the most significant reform that was there. The change of government was in 2013. Throughout that period, where it was clear to most observers that there was likely to be a change of government, the now government made it clear that they would not support that legislation and that they would seek to change it. That meant that investment did not occur to the extent that it would have occurred had that not been put forward. You cannot actually make a decision, in the beginning of 2013, to invest in a new ship, have it constructed and have it operating within a few months. And then companies gave evidence before this inquiry. I refer the minister to the evidence of SeaRoad Holdings, who said things very clearly in a submission to the senate committee. SeaRoad's Michael Easy warned that the legislation before the parliament would imperil the $100 million investment that they had made a decision on to build the first of two new cargo vessels, the first of which they expected to be operating in Bass Strait just next year. So it is pretty clear in terms of those issues.

The minister gave up some of his ideological blinkers when he gave his last contribution. He spoke, again, about the unionists—which is really what is driving this. It seems to me that those opposite have a view that members of the MUA are not worthy of employment and the way that you stop them being employed is to stop there being an Australian shipping industry. That is the logic. The minister spoke about 26 weeks leave in a completely disingenuous way. He knows it is just like a whole range of other fly-in fly-out workers—ships that operate tend to have two sets of crews because when they work they are working on a ship for seven days a week 24 hours a day, literally. So you have one crew on and one crew off. That is the way the industry works. It is just like people who work in offshore oil and gas or people who work away from their home. That is the way the industry works, and the minister is using this in such a disingenuous way, because you have two crews, there are 26 weeks off and they are working 183 days.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not work like that. You know that.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister does not contemplate the reality of this industry. He spoke about the considerable decline. Indeed, since the Howard government there has been a decline. We addressed those issues. The government has given up on the industry. I would ask the minister to respond to the following questions. Why is it that the phase 'Revitalising Australian Shipping' has been removed from the title of the act? Why has the government deleted 'facilitates the long term growth of the Australian shipping industry' from the act's objectives? Why is the definition of 'Australian nationality' with respect to a ship being deleted from the act? It is being completely deleted as if there were no distinction between the Australian flag and a foreign flag of convenience on the back of a ship. The government seeks, through this legislation, which is really Work Choices on water, to remove the Australian flag from the back of our ships and replace it with the white flag when it comes to Australian jobs.

In the minister's response to the last question he laid out very clearly that he regards that as acceptable because there will be savings somewhere else. That is his view. But he should be honest and say that the government's view is to get rid of the Australian shipping industry because it will assist other industries. If that is the view, then at least say it. It is there in the legislation, as I have outlined in great detail and which I intend to continue to do. But the government needs to respond to this: why is it that a National Party minister—indeed, the leader of the National Party, a political party that has a proud reputation for being, as the name would imply, a nationalist party that will stand up for Australian interests—is completely removing Australian nationality with respect to a ship from the legislation. It has always been there in one form or another. Since Federation it has been there. But this government seeks to remove it from the act.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting that the shadow minister chose to quote from page 80. He selectively chose one paragraph. Maybe he should read the paragraph before and the paragraph after, which make it clear why stakeholders were concerned about the cost of Australian shipping:

The current Temporary Licence system was seen as a further disincentive to the participation of foreign vessels, due to high compliance costs and operational uncertainty. Temporary Licences were seen as overly inflexible because foreign vessels are currently required to apply for a minimum of five voyages …

When you selectively take one paragraph out of the whole case you do not accurately reflect the arguments that have been put. In relation to the title of the bill, it is quite clear that when Labor put 'Revitalising Australian Shipping' into the title of the bill it did not have that effect. The reality is that you cannot revitalise an industry just by writing it into the name of a bill. The reality is that since this legislation was implemented the number of ships has dropped from 30 to 15. The number of people employed in the industry has dropped.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

The number of registered vessels has dropped from 30 to 15. The reality is that the name has done nothing to increase the number of ships. It has actually reduced the number of ships. So we are talking about a working title delivering a working result, delivering an outcome that will result in there being a more competitive Australian economy, an economy that is aided by having capacity to move products around our coast at a rate that is competitive with things that are coming in from other parts of the world. If we want to have a strong Australian industry we need to give it the support that it needs to achieve its objectives. Just putting the word in the title of a bill does not do that. You have to have the will and the effective policies to achieve that objective, and that is what our amending legislation is about.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The figures that the Deputy Prime Minister just used are absolute nonsense. To suggest that that decline has occurred between the previous act coming into practice and today is just not true. The minister did not respond. He spoke about page 80. Page 80 makes it very clear. It says:

The primary driver of higher costs was seen to be high Australian wage costs relative to foreign vessel wage costs.

That is just like the 88 per cent save—as shown in the RIS—being about the difference between Australian wages and foreign wages. That is what is actually there at page 80. But I would ask the minister really specifically—and this comes to the crux of the matter, and he must be able to answer—why he has removed any definition of 'Australian nationality' from the act.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not wish to respond. The definition of Australian nationality is in legislation about Australian nationality.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Quite frankly, the failure of the minister to respond says it all.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Legislation about Australian nationality is in legislation about Australian nationality, not in legislation about shipping. Clearly the legislation about Australian nationality applies across all legislation, and you do not have to write these sorts of things separately into every piece of legislation.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister just shows ignorance of the legislation with that response. We are not talking about nationality as in citizenship. We are talking about nationality as in where a company is registered, as in whether there should be a distinction between an Australian flag on the back of a ship and a flag of convenience. It is pretty simple. I referred to the act. I asked about the definition of Australian nationality with respect to a ship that has been deleted from the act. The reason it has been deleted is that previously, under the Howard government, under the Menzies government, under the Bruce government and under every government in power prior to this legislation today this parliament has seen fit to draw a distinction between the Australian flag and conditions and a foreign flag and conditions. Why have we done that? It is because governments have understood that it is in our economic, environmental and, importantly, national security interests to have the presence of an Australian flag and to have a merchant fleet.

For goodness sake, have a look at the role the merchant fleet plays in the defence of our nation. That is why we included the Navy as a direct representative in the consultative group that drew up the legislation that I introduced before this House. This is a government that speaks about stopping boats. We did not think that meant stopping having the Australian flag. But that is what it means here. The merchant fleet play a role in that as well. They play a role in safety. They play a role in security. For an island continent, where 99 per cent of our exports travel by sea, the existence of a maritime sector is critical to our national interest. That has to be the starting point for legislation.

That is why this is not just some semantic debate about words. That is why 'revitalising Australian shipping' was in the title. That is why the objectives of the act included 'facilitates long-term growth of the Australian shipping industry'. That has been removed. That is why you have a definition of Australian nationality. I will provide the answer for the minister. You do not need a definition of Australian nationality with respect to a ship if you do not draw any distinction between an Australian flagged ship travelling from Brisbane down to Sydney and a foreign flagged ship, if it is just a free-for-all with no preference, which is what is in this legislation, and where the Australian ship has to compete on the basis of foreign wages being able to be paid. That is the point, Deputy Prime Minister, that I was making. It is not some academic exercise.

I would ask the minister to indicate if any of the following G20 nations open up their coasts to all comers without making a distinction about nationality of ships and flags, as his government proposes to do. The United States does not. Canada does not. Japan does not. The countries in the European Union bloc do not. India does not. Indonesia does not. China does not. That is why I say this is unilateral economic disarmament. None of our competitors do this. The minister, to his credit, understood this in resisting the absurd proposition of Minister Robb to get rid of cabotage when it came to aviation. But he does not seem to understand that it is the same argument here.

The United States, under the Jones Act, not only does not allow goods to be transported around its coast by anything other than a US flagged vessel with US seafarers; the ship has to be built in the United States as well. That is a proposition that has the support of the Democrats and the Republicans. It was supported by Ronald Reagan. It was supported by George Bush Sr and George Bush Jr. It is supported by Barack Obama, President of the United States. A few of the fruitloops in the Tea Party oppose it, but everyone else in mainstream politics in the United States supports it. That is because of the experience of the US in World War II. They understand how important it is for the national interest. That is why, if the Deputy Prime Minister can indicate any nation comparative to ours, any major economy, that says, 'We will allow a free-for-all and get rid of preference around our coast,' I would like him to please tell me where it is.

We speak a lot in this place about trade, bilateral agreements and multilateralism. We speak about equality of opportunity and arrangements. There is no equality of opportunity here. It is simply not possible for Australian flagged ships to turn up in the US, Canada, Japan, the EU, India, Indonesia or China—any of the G20 nations where we have significant trading relationships—and just start doing business on their coasts. There is a reason for that. It is extraordinary that this is being given up.

If the Deputy Prime Minister has some knowledge that some of these countries are about to do this, I would like him to tell me. But I draw his attention to the United States, the land of the free market. It has a very protectionist system. We do not have a protectionist system here. We have a system that says, 'When an Australian ship is available to do a domestic freight task, it should get that work.' Secondly, it says, 'If an Australian ship is not available and a foreign ship does it that is a good thing, but it has to pay Australian wages.' That is what this argument is about, here, and the uncertainty.

The minister said he is serious about Australian jobs. He said he wants jobs created in the Australian shipping industry. What we know from the legislation is that the Australian shipping industry will decline. Eight-eight per cent of the savings are due to the difference in wage costs. We know four ships in Tasmania will remove their Australian flags. That is the expectation. The expectation of the cruise-ship industry is that it will literally disappear, in terms of the Australian flag. It is there in the legislation. This is not something we needed an inquiry on. I ask the minister: what comparative nations—any at all—is this legislation going to be consistent with, or is it the case that it can be seen as unilateral economic disarmament?

I refer to the regulatory impact statement at pages 74 and 75. The following is the preferred option 4, which is in the RIS and is the basis of the bill. It says this about the exclusion of Australian workplace standards for ships in Australia up to six months. It states:

Some foreign ships would continue to be subject to the Fair Work Act under option 4, however the threshold for coverage will be lifted to ships that engage in more than 183 days of coastal trading in a permit year. This policy change acknowledges the concerns of stakeholders that current Fair Work Act coverage is burdensome, while also requiring adherence to Australian wages and conditions for ships engaged in significant Australian coastal trade.

It is extraordinary that because of the nature of these flags of convenience, that tend to be major operations, it could simply replace one ship around the coast with another one at the six-month mark and the clock starts ticking again, enabling it to pay foreign wages. There is nothing in there, beyond that six months continuous work or 183 days in the year. It is an extraordinarily high figure. Even under its own logic, surely the government—if it were fair dinkum at all—would have a figure in there that was not such a free-for-all. That 183 days exposes the weakness in the government's position.

I do not know if the minister wants to respond to that specific argument. I am more than happy to come back, at a later time, if it suits the minister. I provide him with that offer in good faith. I have been trying to go through, very specifically, problems with this legislation. I might move onto the next one while he is giving consideration to that.

The regulatory impact statement, at page 55, says the following, when evaluating constraints and barriers:

In the current global environment with an oversupply of ships, shippers are unlikely to face difficulty in sourcing transport services; however, in the future an increased exposure to global market forces—

And I ask the minister to respond to this—

could result in a situation where Australian shippers are less able to source cheap and reliable domestic sea freight services. Consultation indicated this is a risk the industry is willing to assume in a globalised economy.

This is a problem for the Australian economy as a whole.

The minister has clearly indicated he is prepared to see the Australian shipping industry decline—or disappear—because he thinks that will produce benefits for other industries. But here we have, in the government's own regulatory impact statement, a statement from the government that there could be circumstances whereby Australian shippers—people who want to carry freight around the coast—simply are not able to engage in that trade, thereby representing an extraordinary risk to the economy. It is one of the reasons we have an Australian industry, why you need the Australian flag, when you are an island continent. The consequences of that are quite extraordinary.

The RIS, in the legislation here, essentially says, 'There's a risk there but industry is prepared to cop that.' I am sure there would be some people—Shipping Australia is clearly supportive of this legislation—who are prepared to accept that. For those people who the minister says rely upon shipping services it is quite extraordinary. It goes to issues such as energy security as well. What happens if there isn't a ship available to supply the energy security that Australian industry requires? It seems to me that the reliability risk is a real issue.

I go now to the issue of assumptions on foreign registration. I go to the cost-benefit analysis, which is at page 128. It operates under the following basis for making its assumptions:

An analysis of the ships that operated under a Temporary Licence between July 2012 and June 2014 using Lloyds data indicates that foreign vessels operating in Australian coastal shipping are registered mostly in open registry countries including Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands or the Bahamas, or otherwise registered in low-wage countries or countries offering favourable conditions to foreign ship owners …

There it is in black and white on page 128. They are called flag-of-convenience ships because those nations, quite frankly, are prepared to allow the use of their flag on the back of ships that really have nothing to do with those nations. The ships that fly the Liberian flag are not actually ships that arise from the Liberian shipping industry. They are called flag-of-convenience ships because those nations are prepared to allow what I regard as a misuse of their flag—something that the Australian people would never allow any government in this nation to operate. But it makes it very clear in terms of the circumstances of the RIS when it talks of 'favourable conditions to foreign ship owners'. Exactly what does that mean? What that means is the way that workers are treated. What that means is that less tax is being paid into the Australian economy. And the government makes this assumption in its official modelling that is the basis of this legislation. I hope that those who are sitting in their offices—particularly the National Party members who, historically, have been prepared to stand up for Australia—are listening to this. There, in black and white on page 128, are the assumptions that I regard as quite remarkable.

I refer the minister to page 156 of the explanatory memorandum—the cost-benefit analysis. It says the following of the preferred option:

Many of the operators currently operating under the Australian General Register would likely re-flag their vessels in order to compete with the foreign operators who enjoy the benefit of comparatively lower wage rates. Australian seafarer jobs would be adversely affected as Australian operators re-flag from the Australian General Register.

Ship operators are likely to replace Australian seafarers (paid under EA rates) with foreign seafarers (paid under ITF rates). Nevertheless, a portion of the crew may remain Australian due to the world-wide shortage of high-ranking positions.

Can the minister indicate why his official modelling indicates the loss of Australian seafarers' jobs and their replacement with a foreign workforce? What is the assumed size of the Australian major trading fleet following the passage of this legislation—that is, what is the end point that the government sees? Is it zero Australian ships?

I also ask the minister this. As part of shipping reform we had a maritime workforce development forum that worked with the Australian Maritime College at Launceston, with industry, with the unions, with the navy—all were represented on that task force. I do not believe that the minister or the government have considered the implications for the crossover in skills that a domestic Australian maritime sector provides: the people who run our ports; the people who run our harbours; the people who go from the navy to the merchant fleet. There is a real crossover and, in getting rid of, essentially, an industry in the way that it is envisaged, I believe that the government has not given appropriate consideration to that.

There is another issue I would like a response to. The minister made an assertion in response to my comparative analysis in my second reading speech about the way in which the Australian shipping industry has a very good record and the foreign flag-of-convenience industry has not such a good record; he sought to suggest that that was not the case. I have witnessed, and I refer the minister to, the Pasha Bulker incident off the Newcastle coast—one that created a great deal of damage and one which the reports showed certainly could have been avoided had the ship's captain acted in a responsible way. I also refer him to 2009 as cyclone Hamish approached the Queensland coast, when the Pacific Adventurer lost shipping containers overboard that created a huge hole in the hull of the ship and a 60-kilometre oil slick which hit the beaches of the Sunshine Coast—indeed, very close to the minister's electorate. The clean-up bill there was $34 million and, again, the ship had a foreign flag.

About a year later I was the minister when Shen Neng 1 ran aground off Rockhampton. As you are aware, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority do a fantastic job—that is something we can agree on. I flew over the site in an AMSA Dornier aircraft, and you could literally see the channel where the ship should have gone through off the coast and turned. You could see precisely what happened from the air—the ship just kept going. The consequence of that was a hole in the Great Barrier Reef three kilometres long and 250 metres wide.

Just after that I went to New Zealand and looked, along with the New Zealand minister, at the consequences of the disastrous foreign flagged ship that stopped the trade from the major port on the North Island near Auckland for a period of many weeks. AMSA and Australian experts came and assisted in that process. There is something that all of these incidents have in common—they did not have the Australian flag on the back of the ship; they did not have an Australian captain and seafarers who were actually aware of local conditions; they were circumstances that cost a substantial amount of money. The consequences for our environment of these incidents was to be dire indeed

I repeat my offer to the minister to come back and have further debate—if the minister is going to answer these questions, which are very specific, about his legislation. All of my contributions have gone to the detail of the legislation—detail that has not been considered properly by the government. Paul Neville of the National Party, who was one of the architects of this legislation, would be quite shocked by the way in which this legislation is being dealt with. I have one summing up contribution, but if the minister does want to respond to the questions that have been asked now or at a later time, I would ask him to.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am of the understanding that the shadow minister is only going to make one further contribution. There are a number of issues. Firstly, let me go back to the so-called nationality issue. When he asked the question, I was assuming that he was talking in normal terms about what a person's nationality was. I assume, following his subsequent statement, that he was talking about the nationality of the ship. That is dealt with in section 14 of the Navigation Act 2012. That definition applies in all circumstances, including where references are made to matters of that nature in this legislation.

Regarding the question about national interest and the importance of having Australian shipping, I referred to this issue in my opening remarks some hours ago, and I have referred to it subsequently. I agree very strongly. I said similar words to the shadow minister in relation to the importance of Australia having skilled maritime personnel who are able to act as pilots through the Great Barrier Reef and some of the narrow channels that we have around the country, and to be our tug crews and provide maritime services to our nation into the future. I agree that we want more people who have maritime skills in this country. I recognise that there are crossovers of skills from the Navy to the merchant fleet, but also from the sort of people who become our pilots who have usually been captains on vessels and have had some experience around our sea lanes. For that reason it is important that we have a strong and viable shipping industry. I do not think that there is a philosophical difference between the opposition and ourselves on that point. The difference is how we get there. My concerns are that the current arrangements have not worked, and we need to therefore find a better way of dealing with things.

The second issue which he raised concerned the importance of having Australian ships to supply our markets, and he particularly made reference to fuel. I would remind him of my remarks right at the beginning when I quoted from a number of people who raised this very point, and the point that the current arrangements are not serving that objective. Cristal Mining said in their submission to the Senate committee:

The Act, in its current form, puts Australian industry at risk of operational shut downs and possible job losses.

The shadow minister was referring particularly to the petroleum industry. The Australian Institute of Petroleum, who ought to have some authority in the field, said:

The current cumbersome and inflexible regulations impede the efficient operation of domestic refineries and petroleum supply chains around Australia, do not facilitate liquid fuel supply security, and do not advance the objectives of the coastal trading legislation or the local shipping industry.

Here you have people who are directly involved with the supply of petroleum around the country saying the current system is not working, and therefore we have to do better. Fortunately, our waterfront has been relatively peaceful industrially, but there are people around who can remember when it was not like that, and I am not sure that they would have regarded it as being a particularly desirable option to only have Australian ships being able to bring petroleum to this country. We have sometimes needed to have other vessels because of the fact that local people did not want to do the job at the time.

In my remarks, I also refer to the question of the deficiency rate on ships. The shadow minister misquoted me somewhat. I never suggested that foreign ships were better than Australian ships—some will be good and some will be not so good just as some Australian ships are good and some are not so good. The point that I made—an undeniable statistical fact—was that in 2014 the AMSA Port State Control statistics show that the deficiency rate on Australian ships was higher than the deficiency rate on foreign flagged ships. That is probably a coincidence—I sincerely hope that is the case. If not, we have an issue that we really have to seriously address—if there is a systemic problem. I suspect that it was something of a statistical abnormality, but the point that is made by those statistics is that there is no evidence to suggest that foreign flagged vessels have more deficiencies than Australian flagged vessels.

In relation to the Shen Neng, I referred to that also in my earlier remarks and made the observation that that was on an international voyage, not a coastal voyage, and this legislation is not going to affect the international vessels undertaking a voyage of that nature. So, while the case is interesting and important and demonstrates to us why we need to have a high standard of port state control, it does not of itself prove that foreign vessels operating around the Australian shore are going to make any real difference. That is a matter of how effective our port state control is, and certainly the safety and the proper operation of our shipping industry is a key objective of this legislation.

In relation to the wages that are paid, it was the previous government that introduced the modern award part B into the legislation, and we are picking up that system and therefore using the same conditions, pay and arrangements that the previous government thought were acceptable when they introduced that legislation into the parliament. Of course, underpinning all of this is the Maritime Labour Convention, which puts in place minimum standards. I accept that Australian standards are higher than the minimum standards that are laid down by the International Labour Organization member states, but I would also remind you that Paddy Crumlin has been president of that organisation and seemed to be satisfied that those sorts of standards were reasonable for international mariners at that time. I am not advocating that those would be the wage levels that we would set for the workers in Australia, but the reality is that there are some safeguards in place.

Our regulator has proved itself to be efficient and competent in dealing with any vessel that is deficient. When one is hauled up, the union usually have a story about it in the paper the next day, and so the public are well and truly aware when there are foreign vessels in our waters that do not meet appropriate standards. I for one will not stand for vessels that are a danger to our environment or do not provide appropriate working conditions for those on board.

Let me sum up and make it clear where the government's position is. The reality is that Australia as a country makes its own laws, and what has been effective in some places is not effective in other places. What is absolutely clear is that the current arrangements are not working and we need do something better in the future. The shadow minister did indicate a willingness to consider some amendments and improvements to the bill.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I am becoming less persuaded about that as the hours go by, but nonetheless I am aware of the fact that this will be an issue that will be dealt with in the Senate. We believe that the fundamental thrust of the legislation is sound. We want more ships, not fewer ships. We want more Australian mariners, not fewer Australian mariners. We want more profitable Australian industries, not less profitable Australian industries. We do not want industries closing in this country and having their products replaced by imported products because the cost of shipping in this country is uncompetitive. We want an industry that works and works well, and the intention of these amendments to the legislation is to achieve those objectives.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, in response to the definition of Australian nationality, this is what it actually says on page 8 of the legislation:

Item 5 repeals the definitions of acceptable tolerance limits and Australian nationality in subsection 6(1). The new coastal shipping permit … provides a vessel with unrestricted access to coastal shipping, which means the definition of acceptable tolerance limits is no longer required. The definition of Australian nationality is not required as no provisions in the Act refer to Australian nationality.

It is there. It is a free-for-all. There is no limit. Previously you had to define 'acceptable tolerance limits'. You had to define the access that foreign ships had on the coast, because they were restricted. Now what it says is that it is a free for all. You get a permit, you can do what you like and you can pay foreign wage rates. That is what it says. The minister says, 'We want to see more seafarers or more Australian shipping,' but we have quoted very clearly from his own bill. It says:

Australian seafarer jobs would be adversely affected as Australian operators re-flag from the Australian General Register.

Ship operators are likely to replace Australian seafarers … with foreign seafarers …

So the register changes the flag on the back of the ship and the workers change. That is what the legislation says will be the consequence of it.

So do not come in and say, 'We don't want what the act says will happen, but vote for it.' That is absurd. It defies common sense. That is why we are opposed to this legislation. That is why I have said in good faith—and I do so again publicly to the minister—that, if there are improvements to be made, by all means we are prepared to consider them. We fixed the Qantas act, as Alan Joyce reminded the National Press Club today, by amending the legislation in the Senate, and the government responded practically by agreeing with Labor's position, and we got it done in the national interest. This minister did the right thing by opposing Andrew Robb's absurd attack on aviation cabotage, which would have meant the Australian carriers, Qantas and Virgin, departing northern Australia. That is what they said would happen. That is why this minister opposed it. He stood up to his cabinet colleague, and he should stand up for Australian jobs and industry on this, because the Australian shipping sector is saying what will happen, in terms of Maritime Industry Australia Ltd

The sector is saying what will happen. The cruise ship industry is saying what will happen. The legislation itself says what will happen, in the RIS and in the explanatory memorandum. It says that four ships that currently operate from the Tasmanian coast will disappear as Australian flagged ships. It says that, so do not be surprised when it happens. That is why we are opposed to this legislation.

This is Work Choices on water, because it is ideological. According to the legislation, 88 per cent of the savings is the difference between Australian wages and foreign wages. That is what it says in the legislation. We reject it because it is unilateral economic disarmament. I asked the minister very clearly: 'Which of the G20 nations—the United States, the European Union, Indonesia, China, India, Japan—would allow this sort of policy?' The answer to that is: none of them, because they all understand their national interests, and so we should. That is why this minister should withdraw this legislation. That is why the Senate should vote this legislation down, and they should start again with proper consultation. The change of leadership in the government should provide Prime Minister Turnbull with an opportunity to have a common-sense solution. When you have a policy that is opposed by the entire sector (Extension of time granted) and there has not been proper consultation, the legislation should be opposed.

I have very specifically gone through the problems in the legislation, in the explanatory memorandum, in the RIS and in the bill itself before the parliament. I have very clearly indicated that there is a problem with regard to the consequences, and not just from the evidence of the Senate legislation committee. The consequences were very clear from evidence from people like Mr Bill Milby. I have gone through what the act itself says. I have been in this place a long time—

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and I will be here for a long time yet. I notice that the member for Berowra is up there. He has been here for more than double the time I have been here. When Work Choices was carried, we pointed out that it was ideological legislation and that it would cause great damage to the national economy. This legislation is just ideology before common-sense and that is why it should be opposed.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be agreed to.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just indicate that the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated that he has a meeting and, out of deference to him, rather than any indication that the opposition is anything other than totally opposed to this legislation, we will not call a division at this time.

Bill agreed to.