Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to stand to speak on the Navigation Bill 2012, the Navigation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012, the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Bill 2012 and the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012. I have been watching with some interest the progress towards this day for a number of years. This suite of bills brings together for me a number of the characteristics of this government: firstly, an absolute commitment to Australian shipping and a place for Australian shipping not only as a builder of ships but also in a country that can stand tall in the international shipping world. It once again looks to the future. Secondly, it considers, in the drafting of this suite of bills, the flexibility that is needed as things change in the industry. This is well and truly—particularly relative to the bill that it replaces—a suite of bills that looks at the future and the position of our shipping industry very well.

Thirdly, it also brings forward something that this government has been doing consistently for four years now—that is, starting to remove the unnecessary duplication of regulation that we have in this nation when people cross state borders. Over the last year I have watched the government deal with the duplication of regulation for business names, for the registration of medical practitioners and for the sharing of information among police forces—a whole range of areas where this government has stepped in to take out some of that unnecessary duplication which has grown over time, largely because we started as a federation of states, but which still in 2012 is something that plagues many businesses around the country. This suite of bills is literally 100 years in the making. The main bill, the Navigation Bill 2012, essentially replaces the Navigation Act 1912, an act which celebrates its 100th birthday this year. It is one of the oldest acts in parliament and, as we heard from the previous speaker, one that took some nine years of development and was one of the largest acts of parliament of its day. It was still being drafted in 1912 when the Titanic sank, and the drafting was altered to incorporate safety recommendations that were internationally agreed to following that disaster. It is an extremely important act. It is the key legislative vehicle to give domestic effect to Australia's port control responsibilities and implements a range of international conventions covering matters such as safety of life at sea, training and certification of seafarers, prevention of collisions at sea, watertight integrity and reserve buoyancy of ships, pollution prevention standards for ships, safety of containers, salvage and regulations to determine gross and net tonnage of ships. These are things that most Australians would not give a thought to on a day-to-day basis; but, if you think about it for any length of time, you realise it is an act of parliament that underpins much of the safety of personnel and our environment. It is the primary legislation that regulates ship and seafarer safety, employment conditions for Australian seafarers and, importantly, the shipboard aspects of protection of the marine environment, so it is an extremely important act.

As you would expect, it has been amended over the years many times. It has often been the case that it was done on an ad hoc basis—a fix here, a fix there, a change to meet new international conventions. As a result, it is a strange mix of modern and archaic concepts. The archaic provisions are gone from the new act. As has been mentioned a number of times, we no longer necessarily need the master of a ship to be told if someone who is coming onboard is, to quote from the old act, 'a lunatic'. It would no longer be right for the master of a ship to be able to shoot someone and be immune from prosecution. And yet those provisions had remained in the act. They are now gone.

But the changes go much further than that. They are a genuine rewriting of the act, casting it in modern, plain language. Perhaps that is also partly the reason why it is much shorter than the old one. I know that when most of us start looking at an old act the urge to pick up the red pencil comes out. It has well and truly been done here. It is cast in plain, easily understood language. It reflects contemporary conditions and practices in the shipping industry. It removes unnecessary and outdated provisions. It enhances ship safety and protection of the marine environment. It introduces greater flexibility to allow regulation to remain contemporary with national and international standards. In doing all of that it provides confidence and certainty for the shipping industry.

It also encompasses another act which is even older than the Navigation Act 1912, and that is the Lighthouses Act 1911. That, of course, is an act that is about aids to navigation, but navigation has changed quite considerably since that initial act was drafted, as you can imagine. Again the act has been altered and amended over time, but the new provisions have been modernised and are flexible enough to encompass all the new ways of navigation including satellites, global positioning systems and traditional beacons and lights. Those provisions will be encompassed in the new Navigation Bill 2012. The old Lighthouses Act 1911 will be repealed once the new act comes into play. The bill took about three years in planning, public and whole-of-government consultation and extensive drafting. Through the commitment and cooperation demonstrated by all stakeholders, we now have a bill which will well and truly set the shipping industry up for the future.

Shipping is an incredibly important part of Australian life. Australia's shipping is now the fourth-largest in the world but, at the same time as it has been growing, the number of Australian ships operating has been in drastic decline. In 1996, 16 years ago, we had 55 ships. Today we only have 21, with just four operating internationally. This government has introduced legislation recently which demonstrates its commitment to regrowing this incredibly important part of our national life. We are an island, as we know. We are a country where 99.9 per cent of our exports are moved by ships. That again makes this particular industry incredibly important.

And yet it has operated for quite some time under some interesting restrictions. The Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Bill 2012 works to remove some of the regulatory burdens that the shipping industry faces. It creates one of the three national regulators that will replace 23 existing regulators of rail, heavy vehicles and ships. It introduces a new national law for the regulation of domestic commercial vessel safety and establishes the Australian Maritime Safety Authority as the national marine safety regulator. This will make a remarkable difference. It has come about through consultation through COAG—again a very comprehensive negotiation process—because it effectively removes a great deal of state regulation and replaces it with the national one. The reduction in red tape and the productivity benefits of this reform are calculated to be around $30 billion over 30 years. The bill means that Australia finally has one national maritime safety law replacing 50 pieces of legislation in seven jurisdictions, one national maritime safety regulator replacing seven state and territory regulators, and one national system for commercial safety allowing the seamless movement of domestic commercial vessels and crew around the country. I want to talk about exactly what that means. For example, if you look at crew qualifications between jurisdictions, a seafarer may be issued a certificate from the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania following an oral examination, but if he decides to seek work in Western Australia he must be issued with a new Western Australian certificate when he crosses the border, involving the payment of a $335 fee. Nationally recognised qualifications and a single certificate will allow a smooth transfer of labour across state borders.

It also affects construction standards. A vessel built in one jurisdiction for operation in another requires certification during construction by a surveyor from the receiving jurisdiction. This only applies if the ship is travelling domestically. For example, a company based in Tasmania builds catamarans. The catamarans are all built to the national standard and subject to survey during construction. The vessels sold around the world with supporting documentation based on the national standard for commercial vessels are accepted without question. But if that catamaran should be sold domestically, additional documentation and physical inspections are required by the gaining jurisdiction's maritime authority. If you build a catamaran in Tasmania and move it from state to state you have to get additional documentation, but if you take it overseas it can happily travel around the world. This new national maritime regulator removes that quite onerous regulatory burden.

It also means that meeting the requirements of different jurisdictions in relation to the issue of certificates will be removed, saving considerable time should the owner of a vessel decide to move interstate or take the vessel across the state border. Another example is of a Tasmanian company operating a fishing vessel around the nation, including in waters at the top end of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Every time one of that company's vessels crosses waters between the Northern Territory and Queensland the company must apply for new seaworthy certificates from the respective maritime transport authorities. For that particular company seven staff are employed just to support the administrative work required to cross a dotted line when it comes to a state border in an ocean.

This is a very important suite of bills. It recrafts an act which has served us well for a long time, but is now increasingly a patchwork of archaic and modern concepts. It recrafts that into a modern bill with associated bills that look to the future and recognise the reality of the shipping industry in Australia. This suite of maritime bills prepares our regulatory framework for growth in the Australian shipbuilding industry itself. You can imagine the increased complexity for Australian shipbuilders as we increase our shipbuilding capacity if the regulation had continued as it was, requiring such an onerous regulatory burden every time our ships cross a border. They are important pieces of legislation which have been many years in the making. I congratulate the minister and the department for some extraordinary work. New legislation which requires such extensive consultation with all the state jurisdictions is very difficult to achieve. That is one of the reasons why drafting such legislation takes three or more years. It demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to looking to both the future and our Australian shipping industry. I commend the bill to the House.

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