Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to make my contribution on the creation of the Modern Slavery Amendment (Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner) Bill 2023. I congratulate the Attorney-General on progressing this important reform and delivering on Labor's election commitment to add this important role to our response in combatting modern slavery. In welcoming this important reform, I have a request that the new Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner take a very, very close look at the operations of the many overseas crewed and flagged vessels that visit Australian ports. As colleagues are aware, modern slavery includes serious exploitative practices such as trafficking people, deceptive recruiting, forced labour and forced marriage. Unfortunately, forced labour is still used extensively in international shipping.

In fact, the International Transport Workers' Federation boarded a ship in Mackay earlier this month, following concerns about crew mistreatment, wage theft and deplorable conditions. The MV Eleen Sofia is registered in Liberia and is a flag-of-convenience ship—surprise, surprise. The ship has a shocking record. In February this year, the ITF boarded this same ship, the MV Eleen Sofia, when it was docked in Port Adelaide. Their main concerns at the time were overdue or unpaid wages and a lack of provisions—in other words, a lack of food for the crew. While the ITF fixed these issues at the time, they discovered exactly the same problem with the same ship when it pulled up alongside Mackay earlier this month.

Things are now so bad with the MV Eleen Sofia that the Australian Border Force relocated the vessel to Gladstone. You may well be wondering what a foreign flagged and crewed vessel has to do with Australian antislavery provisions. In addition to undertaking international voyages, this ship conducts coastal shipping between Australian ports under licence from the Australian government. Every time ITF inspectors board this ship at an Australian port, they find underpayment of workers and appalling conditions. When they boarded the ship in April this year, they found, as I said earlier, no food for the crew—think about that. The ITF, my mates, conducts inspections throughout Australia's mainland ports. These inspectors are led by former seafarer, MUA official and great mate of mine Ian Bray. Together, this team uncovered more than $30 million in stolen wages just last calendar year. Thirty-million dollars in unpaid wages is definitely something that the incoming Anti-Slavery Commissioner should focus on.

I had the great privilege of joining ITF inspectors in Melbourne in November last year as part of their week of action. Although I could only do the one day, it was great to join a wonderful human being, Christian Roos from the ITF in Belgium. Christian is an experienced ITF inspector and former seafarer. The week of action targeted shipowners and agents that systematically steal the wages of workers who transport more than 95 per cent of consumer goods that Australians rely on. The ship I boarded that day was a Chinese flag vessel with two extremely wonderful captains. They were really decent people. They opened up their books, welcomed us onboard and gave us access to everything. I tagged along. As someone who has done safety inspections in trucking yards, I did have a bit of an idea of what Christian might be looking for. But it opened my eyes. He checked out medicines and air conditioners to make sure everything was alright.

He went into the kitchen, and this was interesting. There was food in storage in the fridge. For starters, the fridge and the freezer both weren't working properly. Then we inspected food, and he was pulling out the vegetable trays. There was moss on the vegetables. The chef was like, 'Well, I'll just cut it off and keep cooking.' But this is the magnificent job they do, let alone chasing wages. Let's not forget: these poor devils can be stuck on these ships for nine months. It was a real eye-opener, and I congratulate Ian and ITF. Keep up the great work.

These workers, as I said before, are some of the most vulnerable. They often have their passports confiscated and are deprived of shore leave and decent accommodation. That's on top of their wages being stolen at times. At the moment, workers like those on the MV Eleen Sofia rely on ITF inspectors like Ian Bray and Christian Roos to make sure they get paid and get food to eat while they are away from home for up to nine months at a time. The ITF's recent, magnificent report, Nowhere to Hide, revealed that 70 per cent of ships carrying imports and exports onto our shores through our ports fail to meet international standards for wage payments. And yet, we don't think that's a drama. What a shocking system. But this has been around for years and years. I share the frustration here because I've been talking about this for years and years. That's why I urge the commissioner to work with the Fair Work Ombudsman and, of course, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to combat the scourge of modern slavery at our ports and in Australian waters. I commend this bill to the Senate.