Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the opportunity again to speak on the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017, as I only had a minute yesterday. In continuation, I want to stress from the outset that this bill will actually mean a loss of hundreds of thousands of seafarer jobs in this country. Many of those could potentially be from my electorate. I'm from an island state which is predominantly an export state, and a number of shipping companies could potentially be at risk from this bill. It will mean that foreign ships and foreign crews could come in and take over some of the destinations and the work undertaken by Australian crews and Australian ships. We've seen it before with this government when it's been issuing permits left, right and centre that have resulted in hundreds of Australian jobs being lost, replaced by foreign workers. I've heard the Prime Minister say time and time again, 'The government is the friend of the worker.' Well, not when it comes to the maritime industry.

I was born into a seafaring family. My father was a seafarer. He was a steward on the Princess of Tasmania, the Empress of Australia and the Abel Tasman, where he passed away at sea while I was quite young. These vessels were largely passenger ships bringing visitors to and from Tasmania. Much like the current Spirit of Tasmania ships, they also had a large freight component.

I would also like to share with the chamber what a local seafaring job means to people in my electorate. I have a number of ports in my electorate, probably more than any other electorate in Tasmania, so there are many, many people that are supported by the shipping industry in Tasmania. Being from an island state that is absolutely reliant upon Bass Strait shipping, Tasmanians have a strong cultural affinity with the sea and with Bass Strait. Maritime operations are central to life in my electorate of Braddon and are vital to the Tasmanian economy. Like many in my home town of Devonport, Bianca, whose husband works as a seafarer, saw the crew from the Alexander Spirit when it was docked in Devonport in 2015—we have just celebrated the third anniversary of that dispute. The crew were told they would be sacked and replaced when the ship next docked in Singapore. This action has had a profound effect on her family and puts a human face on what it would mean, should this government have its way. Bianca told me: 'I lay awake at night, worried about my husband's job, worried that he and his shipmates are going to be replaced with a foreign crew, without warning. The current coastal shipping laws mean some security for my family. It means that my children, as proud Australians, will have a chance to go to sea, just like generations of my family have done before me.'

Over 99 per cent of Tasmania's freight volumes are moved by sea. The timely and efficient movement of passengers and goods to the mainland not only mean hundreds of local jobs but also supports important industries in tourism, agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and the mining and manufacturing sectors. The most recent data from Tasmania's Department of State Growth states that over 12.5 million tonnes of freight is moved through Tasmania's publicly owned ports. An additional 2.4 million tonnes of freight is move through Port Latta, which is in my electorate. Tasmania's freight task is a mix of bulk commodities, at 65 per cent, and containerised freight, at 35 per cent. Eighty per cent of Tasmania's sea freight is for interstate trade, 17 per cent is for international exports, and a small amount is direct overseas freight.

Our containerised freight task is also seasonal. For imports, volumes increase in the spring and early summer. For exports, volumes increase between the summer and late autumn, driven by agricultural production. Tasmania is well serviced by three Australian owned and crewed shipping companies: Toll, SeaRoad and TT-Line. Just last week Toll Shipping announced its two new Bass Strait freighters are expected to start operating on 1 March next year. My local Burnie newspaper, The Advocate, reported that this is part of a $311 million spend, which the Melbourne headquartered company said would significantly increase shipping capacity between Tasmania and the mainland and support economic growth and rising demand for Tasmanian produce. The vessels set to operate between Melbourne and Burnie are being purpose-built at a cost of $170 million. The project also includes $141 million to upgrade terminals, wharves and berthing facilities at both ports. Toll Group managing director, Michael Byrne, said:

This is the largest ever investment by a logistics business in the Bass Strait, and underpins Toll's commitment to the Australian domestic market and the Bass Strait trade.

Another Bass Strait operator, SeaRoad Shipping, launched its $110 million Searoad Mersey II vessel in 2016, which lifted the operation's capacity by 62 per cent. They also have plans to replace the Searoad Tamar. All of this investment and the hundreds of jobs it supports would be placed at risk by this bill. That is unacceptable to me and to the people in my electorate.

The Tasmanian government's Tasmanian Integrated Freight Strategy contains the following statement:

Tasmania’s freight system underpins business and economic growth in the state. … It also equips our economy to optimise growing national and international demand for Tasmanian products. A reliable freight system is critical to Tasmanian businesses retaining and accessing new markets.

I would think the ears of those opposite should be pricking up on this kind of language.

A large proportion of Tasmanian sea freight is also time-sensitive, reinforcing again the need for reliable shipping services. This time-sensitive task is especially important to Tasmania's agriculture and aquaculture industries. These are high-value products and include seafood, cherries and berries. Currently, there is no dataset that comprehensively defines or quantifies the time-sensitive freight market. However, the Tasmanian government, through Infrastructure Tasmania, has recently completed a report examining production volumes and potential market growth across 28 time-sensitive freight commodities, including salmon, potatoes and frozen meat. The findings of this report are significant when you give consideration to future freight volumes and a vital need for a regular and reliable shipping services. The review found that even under a modest growth scenario the time-sensitive freight segment is forecast to increase by 43 per cent.

I trust the House now understands how vital a regular and reliable shipping service to Tasmania is. This government has destroyed Australia's car manufacturing industry, and now it seems that this government is determined to destroy Australia's coastal shipping industry and, more broadly, our maritime industry. I have listened intently and I'm yet to hear one member on the opposite side say the magic words, 'I support the Australian shipping industry, Australian ships, Australian crews and Australian jobs.'

As with so many other pieces of legislation that come into this place, this government has form. A previous bill that sought to deregulate the Australian domestic shipping industry resulted in replacing Australian ships with foreign ships and replacing Australian crews with cheap overseas labour. Tasmanian-owned shipper SeaRoad said at that time that they could be forced to replace local crews with foreign workers. SeaRoad was also concerned that that bill would ultimately lead to reduced services and increased prices. The government's own modelling from that bill anticipated that four of the six ships serving the Bass Strait would be foreign-flag vessels if that bill was passed. Fortunately, the Senate saw the multiple flaws in that piece of legislation and rejected it.

Even with the failure of that bill, a dozen Australian ships have been reflagged as foreign ships, replacing Australian crews with overseas labour. I put this test to every member sitting opposite who intends to support this bill: go and speak to one of the many, many workers on the MV Portland or the Alexander Spirit, who were sacked at the stroke of the pen by Senator Abetz, which meant that those ships were going to be sent off, replaced by a foreign ship with a foreign crew. Many of those workers, including in your state, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, have yet to find other work. The crew of the Alexander Spirit, while docked in Devonport, were told they would lose their jobs when the vessel next docked in Singapore. While this ultimately did happen, I was heartened to see the strong community support for the crew of the Alexander Spirit. Those crew members were not local to my home town, where that dispute took place. They were from across the country, but the community stood beside them. Braddon voters, Tasmanians and Australians do not want to see Australian jobs going to overseas workers. This is what this bill would do, and those sitting opposite who vote for this are potentially sacking hundreds of seafarers and replacing them with foreign workers doing exactly the same job as the Australian workers.

Not only that; this bill places more risk on our fuel security and our national security. To some members opposite, these are important factors that they support at any other time of the week. If they vote for this bill, to me it's just an ideological attack on maritime workers and the industry and any future notional support from those opposite to espouse national fuel security as something they care about is just a hollow, insincere gesture. If those opposite are truly concerned about fuel security, as I know the member for Canning is—he's the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—and Liberal Senator Jim Molan, they should cross the floor and not support this bill. It's that simple.

I will explain a little bit further. I've spent a lot of my time outlining why a regular and reliable shipping service is critical to Tasmania. I would have thought that to give the Australian shipping industry confidence the government would want to achieve bipartisan support. In fact, in the minister's own discussion paper for this bill he said that bipartisan support is essential. On this count alone he has failed. This bill allows temporary-licence foreign-flag vessels to significantly vary their freight volumes and the days they are carrying the domestic freight, at the same time making it almost impossible for an Australian general-licence ship to contest those movements. This means that Australian shippers simply won't know what is being carried until after the event. In effect, this means that any half-smart foreign operator and 'compliant' local freight company can game the system to use foreign-flag ships.

What is also disappointing is that despite the minister making a commitment to consult on this bill, he did not do this appropriately. Australia's peak shipping industry body, Maritime Industry Australia Ltd, was not invited to the consultation sessions on this bill. MIAL's membership includes Toll, SeaRoad, ANL, North West Shelf Shipping Services Company and BP Shipping to name just a few. No other Australian maritime businesses, except Carnival Australia, which is a cruise ship operator, were invited. How can you possibly consult on shipping changes without speaking to the actual shipping companies? It was almost as if the minister wanted to consult in an echo chamber, where the sounds he heard were the ones he wanted. If he had consulted with MIAL, he would have heard this—and I quote from MIAL's media release from September last year:

… there is nothing in the Bill to assist Australian shipowners compete with foreign ships that have all but unfettered access to coastal trades. We held low expectations on that front and unfortunately haven't been disappointed there.

This is a damming indictment of this bill from Australia's peak shipping industry body.

Following discussions with SeaRoad, I understand Bass Strait may currently have some protections. There is only one temporary licence available for Bass Strait. If one was issued from Devonport to Melbourne or Bell Bay to Melbourne, SeaRoad would be able to object and stop it. Similarly, Toll could do the same from Burnie to Melbourne. However, I invite the government to provide Tasmanian shippers with an assurance that this will continue, because I am concerned that, if this bill passes, Bass Strait may be opened up more widely to temporary-licence vessels. I am advised that this could be the case. If this is the case, how can potentially opening up Bass Strait to the whim of foreign shipping companies achieve the Tasmanian Liberal government's own objective of a reliable shipping service? What measures will the government put in place to prevent foreign shippers cherry-picking Tasmania's peak periods, thus undermining existing Australian owned shippers? What guarantee can the Prime Minister give to ensure Tasmania is serviced by Australian flagged shippers? I look forward to receiving these answers, and I will be on it until I get those answers. But there are so many other reasons why Labor will not support this bill.

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