Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I ask you: is there a fair arbitrator in this House or not? I think the fair people who are judging this will know that what I am saying is correct. At the end of the day we are making it easier for people to do business in Australia by allowing them to move in and out of ports with their ships and their families far more easily.

But let us talk about the celebrated case of the Pong Su, the North Korean vessel that came here. We should have known more about its crew. In the end we had a long court case in this country because it was a drug-running ship under the flag of the North Korean government. At the end of an interesting court case, which many people in this House would have known about, unbelievably most of them were let go. I believe only two were eventually dealt with. It was a strange set of events. But, anyway, that is the sort of thing we are trying to stop, and this will go a long way towards that.

On the last part of supporting this bill, the fact is that these amendments from the Labor Party are unnecessary. It is more about, again, falling in behind the old union mantra about non-unionised ships and all this sort of stuff. They would have us almost go back to the time when the ports were heavily unionised. We could go back to a crane rate of eight to 10 an hour instead of 25. We do not want to go back to that, but their political masters keep yanking their chain and wanting them to do that. At the end of the day this has nothing to do with the bill that we are talking about, yet I am sure you will hear the member for Batman banging on about the union arguments again here.

In conclusion, the Migration Amendment (Maritime Crew) Bill 2007 is full of integrity. It does what we need it to do. It is done in a timely way. It is good that it will start on 1 July this year. I support the bill.

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