Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why does this government hate Australian seafarers so much? Amongst the many failures of this government is the near complete dismantling of our country's maritime fleet. It beggars belief that the world's largest island nation has one of the world's smallest fleets, with the Liberals going out of their way to smash Aussie shipping and destroy the jobs that go with it.

You can imagine my disgust when I learned that the MPV Everest, a temporary replacement for the Aurora Australis, the pride of our nation's Antarctic scientific expedition, will dock in Tasmania on 11 December with an entirely foreign crew and will then sail on to Antarctica without one Australian on board. This government has taken outsourcing to such an extreme that even an Australian mission to Australia's Antarctic Territory does not require an Australian crew. Experienced seafarers in my electorate applied to join the vessel on its pending visit to Antarctica but were knocked back. And they weren't the only ones. No Australian seafarer was offered a place—not one. Not even the experienced crew of the Aurora Australiswere offered a berth. How dumb is that! The federal government must get on the phone to the Australian Antarctic Division and insist that this vessel, which is part of an Australian mission, be crewed by an experienced Australian crew. The seafarers of Australia have every right to expect better from a government that is supposed to act in the best interests of Australians. Aussie missions need Aussie crews.