Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. In contemplating this legislation, I am drawn to our national anthem and the line, 'our home is girt by sea', reminding us that this great southern land is an island nation. It is a nation that is responsible for 11 per cent of the earth's surface—it is a small nation in terms of population but it is responsible for a large slab of the planet.

Obviously, we have a long seafaring history—perhaps a seafaring history of 100,000 years long—certainly in terms of more recent explorers over the last 300, 400 or 500 years, and a bit further if you include the Macassans coming to the Northern Territory and the northern coast. Prior to Europeans making that long, arduous journey across the seas to reach Australia, there were seafaring Aboriginal people including the Ngaro people in North Queensland. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is home to one of the oldest sites of habitation of this seafaring group. It is estimated to date back 9,000 years. For these Aboriginal people it was essential to navigate the sea for their survival. For the early European seafarers there was no other way to reach Australia or to return to Europe other than across the oceans.

We have always been a seafaring nation by necessity, but those seafaring ways have also honed our skills as competitive sporting sailors as well. Since 1945 Australians have made a sport of negotiating the notoriously treacherous waters of Bass Strait in the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. We have even been known to win famous yacht races, as we saw with—rest in peace—Alan Bond and that incredible win back in the 1980s. Complementing the outback and those outback stories of Australia like Clancy of the Overflow, The Sundowners and The Man from Snowy River, we have always had that seafaring history. It is a part of what we are as a nation.

Even more importantly, seafaring is crucial to our economy, as we are a trading nation. We are still dependent on shipping for 99 per cent of our trade. That will hopefully change as we provide services via the National Broadband Network. Nevertheless, shipping is a very important Australian industry. It employs 10,000 Australian workers, some of whom I met a few months back. I met with some workers who had been stood down—sacked, effectively—via text message in the middle of the night. I went down to the docks to catch up with some of them and their families. The seafaring industry needs to be fostered and it needs to be looked after.

Labor has always been committed to fostering the Australian shipping industry—an industry that was faltering a little bit under the Howard government. We brought in reforms in 2012 to revitalise the shipping industry. The aim of Labor's reforms was to allow the Australian shipping industry to compete on a level playing field within our borders. It was not about tariffs, but it had a little bit of pragmatism and a little bit of economic nationalism—something that we need to do a bit more regularly when we look at what other nations are doing. The reforms brought in in 2012 included: tax incentives for flagging ships that were Australian and to encourage employment of Australian seafarers; a second register, with tax benefits to ships engaged predominantly in international trade; and a reforms package focusing on maritime skills development. The Abbott-Turnbull government has been on a mission to repeal these important Labor reforms. The Abbott-Turnbull government's undermining of these laws from the time they were implemented has had a deterrent effect on investment in Australian shipping and has sadly seen a continuing decline in the Australian trading fleet.

This bill before the chamber strikes at the heart of these reforms, removing support for the Australian shipping industry and removing the level playing field for Australian flagged ships operating in their own waters. It also erodes protections for workers in the shipping industry. If you work in Australia, whether it be moving freight across the country on land or around the country on water, you should be working under Australian pay and conditions. The bill before the chamber erodes these protections. It is effectively Work Choices on water. Eighty-eight per cent of the savings the government estimates will flow from this bill will be due to Australian workers being replaced by 90 per cent foreign crews which will be working for Third World wage rates, as we have seen too often. Whether it be the Taiwanese fruit pickers that were exploited or the 7-Eleven workers, we see that it is hard to enforce the standards, particularly with respect to the racism of the free market when it comes to foreign workers from poorer countries.

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