Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to contest the fundamental premise that we have heard from the previous speaker—that this is a matter that needs to be urgently rushed through the parliament because we have just recently had a case determined which has created a great deal of uncertainty and therefore we need to act with great haste here, in a way that is quite extraordinary. We are proposing a major change to a superannuation scheme without any consultation with the industry, with the unions or with the affected employees. We are told this is because the Aucote case was decided in December and this problem was revealed. As the government has analysed it, this extends the coverage to say that employees in shipping that is engaged substantially in intrastate trade are also covered by the current Seacare scheme.

It is important to understand that the government have had plenty of notice that this was an issue. Back in May 2014, there was a decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal that found very much what was reconfirmed in the Federal Court. So the government had notice more than six months ago that there was this question of interpretation of this piece of legislation. They had ample time to take action to ensure that they brought all parties together—that they brought the government together with the shipping industry and with the affected unions—and worked out a consensus approach. But they did not do that. They sat on their hands for the intervening seven months that this was before the Federal Court and took no action. I think that is not just a case of complacency but it goes to a problem that we see deeply entrenched in this government in many areas of endeavour, and that is an absolute loathing of the tripartite process.

I think I have spoken here before in this House about this. Many economists have analysed why economies like Germany's have done much better than one would have expected in the circumstances, and it is substantially attributed—whether there is a conservative or a progressive government in place in Germany—to a commitment to these tripartite structures. That has enabled Germany to respond with much greater flexibility to a whole variety of economic challenges that it has faced. But what we have here, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, is an intellectually very primitive government that is motivated primarily by an anti-union ideology and is simply unable to do that grown-up thing of bringing all parts of industry together to work through a process. From my experience of dealing with maritime unions, if you adopt that approach, if you bring them onto a platform with industry and all the players, you can achieve progress.

First of all, the case that has been made by the government that this is a matter of urgency that needs to be dealt with now is disingenuous, because they had a good seven months notice prior to the decision of the full court of the Federal Court that this was an issue in play. Indeed, even given that they did nothing, there is no reason now why we cannot take that approach—get all the players together and negotiate some outcomes here. The government claim—a point that was made by the government's lead speaker on this matter—that we still have uncertainty. Now whether or not a ship is engaged 'directly and substantially' in interstate or international shipping becomes the defining point at which a vessel comes under the seafarers act. That is itself not going to be very clear. In the Western Australian case, where we have traditionally had—and no doubt we will once again have, when we have Labor governments back in—coastal shipping routes—

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