Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As my colleague points out, he knew more about shipping than many of us here—not only people on the other side but just about any person in Australia. The report of the committee was called Ships of shame. In the report, the committee identified who the crew members were. They were people who were treated in subhuman conditions, people who were totally powerless, people who were expendable and people who could not question or in any way buck the will of the person in control of the ship. They were desperate people. These are the people who are entering our waters without proper checks.

Australian sea men and women are being checked. They must have the maritime security card. Foreign crews are not effectively checked. The list of crew is submitted; in 33 per cent of cases it does not meet the 48-hour criterion and in 15 per cent of those cases there is no advice until the ship has berthed. When those ships enter our harbours and the names of the crew are presented, there is no effective way of scrutinising them and clearing that the people who are actually identified are the people who form part of the crew. The whole system is anything but effective. If the government is really serious about security, it should address that issue—and address it as a matter of urgency. It will be too late—far too late—once we have an accident in our waters.

Shortland electorate is a coastal electorate. Mr Deputy Speaker, let me give you an idea of some of the changes that have taken place in relation to shipping under the Howard government’s reign. Until a couple of years ago, the Wallarah used to take coal from Catherine Hill Bay—a delightful little settlement in Lake Macquarie and part of Shortland electorate—to the port of Newcastle. It was Australian owned, it had an Australian crew and it was carrying Australian cargo. That ship has now been sold. It is sailing under a foreign flag, with foreign crew. I do not think that is good enough. I do not think it is good enough at all.

Back in about 2002, I visited Newcastle harbour and went aboard the Angel III, which was a container ship. I met the captain. It was a Maltese flagged ship with a Greek captain, crewed by Burmese seafarers. The crew were very frightened. The safety instructions were in English and the crew members could not even speak English, let alone read it. I think this is a serious issue—an issue that, as a parliament, we cannot allow to continue and an issue that the government has failed the Australian people on. The policies have not only led to the destruction of the shipping industry and the continued abuse of crews but placed in jeopardy the safety of all Australians.

It has also come to my notice that al-Qaeda owns somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 18 ships. These ships come under the flag of countries such as Malta, Tonga or wherever the ship is able to obtain a flag from—a flag of convenience. These ships are crewed by foreign seafarers—people who are desperate, people who have been used to sailing in atrocious circumstances. These are the ships that are coming in and out of our ports, carrying cargoes such as ammonium nitrate. These are the ships with crew members that are not being properly scrutinised.

It really makes me shiver. It is a great worry to us on this side of the House. But it seems that the government is not concerned about these desperate people who are crewing ships that could come from wherever; it is more interested in scrutinising Australian seafarers and making sure that their credentials are in order. To me, it does not gel.

What about overseas, in the United States? The government of the day is very close to the United States government, and we on this side of the House respect much that the United States does. One of the things we are particularly supportive of is the fact that they will not allow ships to enter their ports unless they give 48 hours notice of who their crew are or 48 hours notice of their cargo. The coast guard will actually make sure that they do not enter the port until that information is presented. To my way of thinking, that is the way our government should be operating and, when those ships do enter, the government should be able to ensure that the information about the crew is validated.

I would now like to move to the fact that the government has recently announced and was very proud of the fact that it is X-raying 10 per cent of all cargo that enters Australia in containers. That means that 90 per cent of all cargo that comes into Australia is not X-rayed; and in the past cargo containers have been found to contain explosives. Once again, it is not good enough. In Hong Kong, 100 per cent of all cargo is fully X-rayed. If we are really serious about security at our ports then we should be ensuring that all cargo is X-rayed. It is imperative to ensure the safety of our ports.

I mentioned that Shortland is a coastal electorate, and that raises the issue and makes it even more important to me that we have safe waterways and that the ships that are sailing in those waterways are safe. September 11 changed the way we look at safety, security and terrorism. When we are looking at our waterways and the ships that sail them, and at the fact that we have ships sailing with single voyage permits and continuous voyage permits, security is paramount. Coupled with that is the impact that these ships can have on our environment. By not ensuring the security of these ships we can have enormous devastation to our environment and to our coastline. It is imperative that we as a nation have control over the shipping that takes place in Australian waters. That is something that, I hate to say, has diminished greatly under the Howard government. In Australia we should have an Australian shipping industry with Australian seafarers crewing those ships, and seafarers should be evaluated in a way that ensures that any foreign seafarer coming into our country will be scrutinised in the same way that Australian seafarers are.

I think it is time that this government became serious about security at our ports. It is important to have a strong security regime in our ports, similar to what exists in the US or Hong Kong. To do that, a government must have a commitment to the shipping industry. I urge the government very strongly to make that commitment to an Australian shipping industry, to safety on our coastline and to ensuring that our environment and our people are protected.

The legislation that we have before us today clarifies a rather murky piece of legislation that was introduced back in 2003. It puts in place provisions to enable the act to work in a much more effective way. But I do not think we should be constantly coming back to this parliament, time and again, debating legislation that the government should have got right the first time. I support the amendments moved by the shadow minister, and I urge the Howard government to ensure that foreign crews that enter Australia meet the safety checks and are scrutinised in the same way that Australian crews are. I urge the government to move immediately to ensure that all cargo entering Australian waters is safe and to undertake a program of X-raying all shipping containers, not just 10 per cent.

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