Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services: would the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House how union activity is impacting on productivity in the shipping sector and how this union activity is hurting working families and the Australian economy?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gilmore for her question. The member for Gilmore probably, like the rest of us, read with astonishment in the Australian this morning the article about shipowners having to take the MUA, the Maritime Union of Australia, to court for the right to unload their vessel in Port Kembla. The member for Gilmore has always been a strong supporter of the reforms that our government has introduced as far as workplace relations are concerned—in particular, the reforms that were introduced onto the waterfront that have delivered some of the greatest productivity gains to our economy of all the reforms that have been introduced in the last 11 years.

We have a situation in Port Kembla where a vessel, the Capo Noli, is stranded and unable to unload its cargo. Interestingly, its cargo is building materials—much needed building materials for the domestic economy and the building industry in Australia. Yesterday we had the member for Sydney and the Labor Party move an MPI about the affordability of housing in Australia, and here they are with their union mates putting up the costs of building materials in New South Wales by holding up this vessel and causing demurrage costs, which ultimately will be passed onto the consumer—the young couple who want to build a house in New South Wales.

It should be exposed for what it is: the ALP talks about boosting productivity and being economically conservative, yet it is supporting an organisation, a militant union, that is adding to the cost of housing in New South Wales by running a picket line against a vessel that has been given a legal permit to carry product around the Australian coastline. The ship was given permission to take an Australian cargo because there was no suitable Australian vessel available at the time, and it is in Port Kembla being held up.

We have the hypocrisy of the Labor Party moving an MPI yesterday about housing affordability, yet they are decreasing productivity; they are adding to the cost of housing. We all know, as a result of some of the public comments of their union allies in the last week, what is likely to happen under a Labor government if it were ever to get into power in Australia. First, it was Greg Combet, when he said that the unions used to run Australia and it would be a good thing if it was like that again. We had it last weekend from Kevin Reynolds, who has been salivating about getting rid of the ABCC and what that will do—of course, we saw a backflip of three years on the ABCC straight after they ran the MPI on housing affordability yesterday. Yesterday, Dean Mighell was asked to leave the Labor Party for using bad language instead of holding a gun to the heads of bosses in negotiations over their situation in the workplace, and now Paddy Crumlin in the MUA is holding up much needed building materials for the housing market in New South Wales to keep the cost of housing down.

There is no doubt that, under a Labor government with the reins being pulled by the union movement in Australia, we would see productivity fall, costs rise, jobs lost and our standard of living decline. Australia simply cannot afford to put our prosperity at risk by electing a Labor government that would be controlled by the union movement in Australia.