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

In the words of our national anthem:

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,

Our home is girt by sea.

Australia by geographical favour is an island nation and is naturally positioned to be a great trading country. We carry over 99 per cent of our traded goods by sea, which makes shipping an essential piece in our 24/7 economy, and our ports are a central gateway to that economy. Every day at ports across our country, ships arrive at our terminals, picking up our mighty export product that the wealth of our country is built upon. Those ships take those products to ports in places across the world. On the other hand, goods such as medical supplies, clothes, food, retail products and building materials arrive on our shore through our ports. Trucks and trains then carry the baton of the great freight task, transporting goods from ports to every corner of our vast country. Without shipping and ports, Australia stops.

Right throughout the country cost-of-living pressures are straining family budgets and hurting businesses. In the context of economic headwinds like these, even the smallest of economic shocks have a ripple effect. This is exactly what is happening at ports in Fremantle, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane right now as industrial action has stalled the movement of goods at DP World terminals. Thanks to the pro-union agenda of the Albanese Labor government, the CFMMEU have been able to hold our critical supply chains to ransom for over a month now, causing ships to sit dormant off our coastline. Processing delays have blown out from the usual two days to over eight days, a 300 per cent increase. This compounds even more for a ship that travels from Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne and then on to Fremantle, which means an extra 24 days of delays. The economic impact of this is significant, and modelling indicates it is taking an economic hit of $201 million per day—over $200 million a day. Ultimately, the cost trickles all the way from the shipping liner to the Australian consumer, as businesses are forced to pay this cost and to pass that cost on to everyday Australian consumers.

Meanwhile, the CFMMEU stubbornly refuses to come back to the negotiations. The union shows no signs of letting up in the lead-up to Christmas. Just this week the CFMMEU have indicated that they will continue to strike until 20 November. As the holiday season approaches, buyer will begin to notice their purchases won't be showing up on time. Retailer will be low on stock, summer renovators will be short on building materials and businesses will bear the brunt at the busiest time of the year. There will be delays in the trade market across a raft of portfolio areas of this Albanese government, and it seems that Christmas 2023 will be no exception. This is the environment that the Albanese government have created with their pro-union agenda. Unions like the CFMMEU, the MUA and the ACTU feel emboldened by a weak government that facilitates their demands and that bows to their pressures. The government feels the need to repay union favours, and, as a consequence, unions can run rampant on our docks and right through our domestic supply chain.

The rolling strikes at our ports are a worrying sign of things to come, and the introduction of multi-employer bargaining will be very, very bad news for Australia's supply chain. At a time of economic hardship and stubborn inflation, the government should be working in the interests of everyday Australians who've had to bear the brunt of another mortgage increase that was announced today and make our ports more productive, reliable and efficient. But under the Albanese Labor government all we see is delay, and that is costing the Australian consumer every day.