Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about Australian seafarers in my electorate of Bass. Tasmania has a proud history of merchant seamen servicing our island coastline and is home to many fly-in fly-out seafaring workers—seafarers like Andrew Halliday, who worked on the CSL Brisbane and was made redundant by his foreign employer, Canada Steamship Lines.

When it comes to our maritime workers in Australia, this government simply doesn't care. There are at least 1,000 unemployed Australian seafarers—that's 1,000—who have been replaced by international workers, and this government is actively trying to assist the companies sacking our workers. If it wasn't actually happening, it would be unbelievable. Imagine, if you would, governments sacking teachers or nurses and replacing them with foreign workers.

When the then Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Senator Michaelia Cash, attempted to introduce the maritime crew visa to assist companies in replacing workers, I was appalled. It took a unanimous decision of five judges of the High Court to stop that tragedy from occurring. Modern seafarers have a number of duties which require reasonably generic qualifications, but this government is allowing companies to create job descriptions that don't line up with Australian qualifications, simply to circumvent Australian law. The 400 visa category is meant to be used for work that encapsulates highly specialised skills: skills or knowledge or experience that can assist Australian business and cannot reasonably be found in the Australian labour market. Despite this requirement, the visa is being used to fill semiskilled positions for which, apparently, qualified Australian workers were not available.

This is occurring at a time when the national security of Australia is being used by this government as political fodder, and yet it continues to erode one of our most vital security assets—that is, our merchant seamen. In World War II, it was the bravery of our merchant seamen carrying valuable cargo to Australia, despite the threat posed by the Japanese navy, that kept our country operating. It is estimated that 386 members of the Seamen's Union of Australia lost their lives during World War II.

Lastly, I'd like to draw your attention to Australia's pre-eminent institute for maritime education, training and research, the Australian Maritime College, in Launceston. AMC is globally recognised as a centre for excellence. The observation was recently made to me by the Secretary of the Tasmanian Branch of the MUA, Jason Campbell, that, when he trained at the AMC at the beginning of his career, there were hundreds of seafarers learning their trade at the AMC. This is something that has declined in recent years, no doubt due to the current ideology of the government to undermine qualified Australian seafarers on our coastline.

Labor have announced that we'll establish the Australian Skills Authority, an independent labour-market-testing body, to determine genuine skills needs and restrict temporary work visas.