Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition takes Australia's international obligations to protect the marine environment from pollution from ships very seriously. This bill aligns Australia's domestic legislation with its international obligations that will support effective and consistent global regulations to protect the marine environment regarding pollution from ships. The International Maritime Organization progressively improves marine environment pollution standards for ships, and this bill aligns Australia with recent changes to international regulations.

The bill aims to do three things. Firstly, this bill introduces controls for discharges of residues of noxious liquid substances, like certain grades of vegetable oil or paraffin-like substances that can form surface slicks. Ships will be required to meet new cargo tank cleaning, pre-wash and discharge procedures for persistent surface slicks. The new regulation applies to northern European waters and came into effect on 1 January 2021. Specifically, it applies to north-west European waters, the Baltic Sea, western European waters and the Norwegian Sea.

Secondly, this bill bans the use of heavy fuel oils by shipping in arctic waters from 1 July 2024. A similar ban is already in place in the Antarctic. The ban aims to reduce environmental impacts on sensitive arctic environments caused by higher emissions of harmful air pollutants from ships burning heavy fuel oil. The heavy fuel oil ban also reduces the risk of oil spills. We've seen the devastating impact on marine ecosystems of oil spills in recent decades.

Thirdly, from 1 January 2023 the bill extends controls on ships' harmful and antifouling systems to include the biocide chemical cybutryne. It's a long time since I've done year 11 chemistry, but to everyone watching upstairs—children—science! You'll be able to read speeches in the Senate appropriately too, one day! This chemical is chronically toxic for marine organisms. According to the APVMA, which is our own regulator of pesticides and chemicals, the use of cybutryne as an antifouling agent for ships in Australia has never been registered or approved for use in ships in Australia. To be clear, this toxic chemical is unable to be used within our jurisdiction in Australia. This is our federal government responding to an international regulatory change which takes effect in the Northern Hemisphere.

This bill brings Australian regulations into line with the international standards-setting body, the International Maritime Organization, which seeks to improve marine environment pollution standards via the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships—a very sensible and clear name—and the 2001 International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems in Ships. While Australian ships are subject to Australian legislation wherever they are in the world, this legislation is not expected to have any significant impacts on our Australian maritime industry. The Australian shipping industry has been consulted on the legislation and is supportive of the alignment with regulations of the international body.

Our own Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has also considered the amendments to MARPOL relating to the cargo residues and tank-washing of persistent floating products, the prohibition of the use and carriage of HFOs in arctic water, and the HAFS convention relating to the control of cybutryne. Our treaty committee supported the amendments and agreed that binding action could be taken. We in the opposition, as is the deputy chair of the treaties committee, are supportive of their advice to the Senate around this piece of legislation. The opposition will be supporting the government's bill.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is a shipping nation. We are surrounded by water, but we own few ships. This doesn't take into account what we're doing locally in our shipping, but what happens up north in the arctic and the North Sea, around a lot of important things. Coming from the Hunter, previously being employed at the port, we know how much this is.

The port of Newcastle brings in $4,800 shipping movements a year. Any one of those can go wrong, as we saw in 2007 with the Pasha Bulker parked up on Nobbys Beach. And what we could get in Australia is the leftover ships. Where we're working with bulk, we get things from moving up north—where we have the Triple Es of Maersk, where we have the Triple Es of 24,000 container ships, where we have the big ships. Australia doesn't have the content for that. So what we are doing here, in working out stuff up north, will eventually filter through to Australia. That's why it's important.

There's talk of this government reinstating a strategic fleet in Australia. I think I was at the press conference where that was launched, in the port of Newcastle, in the lead-up to the last election. What does this do? It protects the environment in case of a shipping accident; it puts a shipping structure in place to make sure we're not using bad chemicals on the bottom of our ships and antifouling. Why is that important? I'll give you an example in our harbour.

The port of Newcastle has a mean depth of channel at 15.2 metres. That's big, indeed. But a ship at high tide, leaving that, will draw 15.1 metres. So we're talking massive ships, with a draw of 10 centimetres difference between the bottom of the ship and the bottom of the channel. If something were to scrape something that was there, we could grab that. We could put that in our channel. That could be bad. If we had another ship like the Pasha Bulker, we could see bunker oil that's probably the dirtiest, filthiest fuel oil around—I think still used by the Russian navy. Some say they tracked the Moskva by its exhaust plumes. These things will all be outlawed under this process.

The use of better systems to protect our mean environment, the use of better systems to protect our harbour environment up in the northern states, and us ratifying this treaty, is so important for biodiversity protection against what can come in on our ships. This is all below the waterline but what is above the waterline is just as important, and we are seeking it for all those treaties. We saw recently, also in the Hunter, varroa mite expected to come in on a ship of some kind. The euthanasing of many hives across the Hunter is still going on. They have most of the registered hives now. Anything we can do to clean up shipping, to protect our environment, to protect our animals, is a good thing.

This bill and everything going through doesn't apply to shipping in Australia, as it stands, but it will one day. That is why it is a good thing to support and why I am proud to be speaking in support of it. While we're talking about the environment and sea levels, workers shouldn't be subject to these chemicals and the antifouling that can cause such bad things. We've seen what happens with PFAS on Australian land and around the world. This is a slight derivation of those chemicals, and we shouldn't have people, down slushy holes, working on that.

This is a step in our international maritime obligations that will benefit Australia in the long term, if not now. It is something that will protect our environment. If we lose a bunker oil ship in the arctic, what that will do to that region is terrible. Bunker oil doesn't get cleaned. We've seen penguins and seabirds getting cleaned every day. It is the most horrible thing. I can't imagine an engine running on that stuff. So that is a very good thing to do.

As the shadow minister said, we'll be supporting the bill and I look forward to other regulations that support our maritime industry in this place.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some remarks about this Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I don't profess to have the knowledge of Senator Cadell, who has spent a lot of time in the Hunter and Newcastle region, which is a great shipping part of New South Wales, but I certainly understand the importance of its commercial contribution to our state and the country.

One of our great attractions as a successful jurisdiction is that we are a country that maintains high standards. We are a serious country, when it comes to the rule of law, and we try to make our international obligations come to life through the enactment of domestic legislation and regulations. And, in relation to this particular measure, that is what it's doing. It's basically putting into domestic law some of the commitments our country has made through international fora.

Particularly in my home state of New South Wales, the shipping industry is a very significant employer, and so we do want to make sure that we are keeping pace with our international obligations across the board. Unless we do that, we are risking our capacity to attract foreign investment, in particular. I believe it is true in all the environmental matters of policy that moving as fast as we can is an important principle, because foreign investors will be looking for the cleanest and the greenest opportunities in which to invest. Whether that is in relation to our standards for domestic environmental purposes or whether that is the pace at which we enact various pieces of corporate law designed to give investors a complete picture of the environmental footprint, I think that is an important objective for this parliament.

In relation to the disclosure of emissions, scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, they are the subject of a significant consultation through international accounting bodies and the like. Obviously, I pay homage to members of my former profession, the accountants, who are some of the most exciting people that you'll ever have the opportunity to meet. They are working on these standards, and the standards should be taken very seriously by our policymakers, because I believe that the countries that move fastest on emissions disclosure are more likely to capture new investment as the global pool of capital looks for honesty in a particular company's emissions profile.

We shouldn't be doing these things in a reckless way, but we should be looking to do them at a pace which is ambitious. Regrettably, in the past we have not been an early mover on enacting our international environmental obligations. I accept that this is not directly relevant to this bill, but I think it is an important point of reference to make in relation to keeping pace with international obligations.

I look forward to seeing this bill being enacted. I believe that it will be supported by the opposition. We look forward to voting for the bill when we have the opportunity.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by thanking all the senators for their contributions and their expression of support for this bill. The Australian government is committed to best practice maritime environmental protection, and the Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 will bring Australia's maritime legislation in line with the latest globally agreed amendments to international maritime conventions that Australia is party to. The bill will further strengthen our marine environment protections by introducing provisions to control the discharge of noxious liquid substances, known as persistent floaters, in certain European waters that came into force on 1 January 2021. It will extend the current ban on the use of heavy fuel oil by ships in the Antarctic to encompass Arctic waters from 1 July 2024 and ban the use of ship antifouling systems containing the toxic chemical biocide cybutryne from 1 January 2023.

By legislating these environmental controls, Australia will uphold our longstanding international reputation for promoting safe and clean shipping operations, and we will be ensuring that international standards to reduce ship pollution and protect the marine environment are being implemented consistently across the globe. The Albanese government remains committed to ensuring Australia's maritime regulatory framework remains up to date and fit for purpose to support a healthy ocean, protect coastal communities and promote sustainable trade. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.