Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The short answer to that question is no. What I think most Australians realise is that, since the Labor Party and Green majority in this Senate forced legislation through this place in 2012, the actual amount of shipping undertaken by Australian-owned shipping has reduced by 64 per cent. That is under Labor's legislation. And do you know what that legislation was designed to do? It was to protect, boost and build the Australian coastal shipping service. Instead what we have witnessed is a further and even more rapid decline, as a result of which we now have truck after truck running up and down the Pacific Highway and across the Nullarbor Plain because it is so much cheaper to move products by truck than by ship. Most Australians would prefer to see our product being moved by ship rather than by trucks on our highways.

As I have said on a previous occasion, the shipping of sugar product from Bundaberg to Melbourne for the confectionery sector—just the shipping cost—costs more than the product and shipping it from Thailand to Melbourne. If you are concerned about Australian jobs, and especially onshore Australian jobs, you would seek to ensure that the coastal shipping service in this country is a lot better run than it has been since the 2012 forced through this place by the Labor-Green majority.