Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

On Friday Mr Albanese, the minister for transport, among other things, tabled a quite lengthy and comprehensive statement about Australia's shipping industry and where it is going into the future. Much of what Mr Albanese said looked good. But most ministerial statements by this government are made in big, bold announcements. They all look pretty good, but there is never ever any detail. Mr Albanese's statement yesterday is a case in point. A lot of the issues he raised do need to be raised in our nation. Unfortunately, whilst the statement looks pretty good, the detail is missing.

It is clear that Australia is a trading nation with a relatively small domestic market. Sea transport carries over 99 per cent of international cargo into and out of Australia by weight and about 75 per cent by value. Domestically, ships carry around 26 per cent of our freight. Many of us wonder at times why, in a nation that is so dependent upon long-distance transport, such a small part of our domestic transport and domestic freight involves sea transport. Freight mainly comes by road, and some by rail.

The so-called reforms announced by Mr Albanese on Friday included little detail of how the proposed measures can deliver what is promised. Some of the industry groups that had a look at the statement made some comments. I will first quote Shipping Australia, who said:

Much will depend on the detail of how the reforms are enacted whether that objective will be achieved. The details of the criteria for the second register and the training packages as the result of the establishment of the forum to develop skills and training in the industry, are some of the issues on which we are waiting further detail.

The Australian Shipowners Association said:

The detail that sits behind these measures is critical and we look forward to seeing the draft legislation in the near future.

I am conscious of how the Labor Party is very beholden to the maritime union. One must treat any alleged reforms in the shipping area with just a little bit of suspicion until we see exactly what the detail is.

I am informed that a typical Australian container ship pays $4.06 million in crew costs per year, compared with just $1.65 million paid by a foreign ship. This is of particular interest to me, coming from North Queensland, which has a substantial sugar industry. The sugar industry employs a lot of people in the north and brings Australia a great deal of wealth. This year, international prices have remained agreeably high. Were it not for the fact that there was such a poor season last year, with a lot of cane left over in the fields because of weather at the end of the season, this would be a bumper year for the industry in North Queensland. Because a lot of the cane being harvested is what is called 'standover' from last year, the sugar content is not as good as it would normally have been. Notwithstanding that, the price is good. If the weather holds out, the industry in the north will get most of the crop off, and that will be very good for the Australian economy and for individual farmers, millworkers and others in the area.

Sugar is mainly an export crop for Australia, and most of the sugar exported from Australia goes by ship. Under the 6.21c per litre that has been slugged on coastal shipping fuel as part of the carbon tax regime, which we are told is going to be imposed on Australians despite strong opposition from the coalition, everything shipped by Australian vessels will be more expensive. That means there will be a real problem in transporting our sugar industry product overseas, particularly if it goes on Australian ships. The carbon tax will make it easier to import goods in general into Australia from foreign ships that do not pay the carbon tax on fuel, as opposed to Australian ships, which will of course pay it.

Mr Albanese spoke about a more generous income tax and depreciation arrangement, and I know that will be welcomed by seafarers and the Australian shipping industry. But it does raise the question of all those other Australian industries facing international tax disadvantages. Many of those industries may well say: 'If it's good enough for the shipping industry to not pay income tax and get better depreciation schedules, then why not car manufacturers, or the tourism industry or food producers? If seafarers' income earned offshore is tax free, why isn't the income for other overseas taxed workers?'

You may remember that in 2009 the Labor government changed the taxation arrangements for Australians working overseas for 91 days or more, to make these people pay income tax in Australia. Based on Mr Albanese's statement, the government is doing the exact opposite for seafarers. One can only be suspicious. If you are going to give these tax concessions to the shipping industry then why not to Qantas or other Australian airlines? They face massive competition from airlines based in low-tax countries or countries with special government concessions or depreciation arrangements. For example, in Australia the effective life of an aircraft for depreciation purposes is 10 years, but in the case of many foreign airlines the effective life is five years—or, in some cases, three years. Company tax rates for airlines in competitor countries like Singapore, Malaysia and China are significantly lower than those faced by Australian carriers. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, which has two of our biggest competitors, there is no income tax payable at all.

Mr Albanese said that all of the measures that he has announced are fully costed, and they have been offset, but there has been no detail provided as to what the costs are or what the cuts are being proposed to fund these changes. So I am, if not suspicious, at least very interested to see the detail of how these so-called reforms announced by Mr Albanese are in fact enacted. We have grown used to this government making grand-scale announcements and then finding that there is no real substance to them—they are really just made to try and divert attention from all of the other many problems that this government currently has before it. So I look forward with interest to seeing what this so-called shipping reform is actually all about, and what the details of this announcement by the minister is, when those details are made available to the parliament.

Question agreed to.