Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the ANL Legislation Repeal Bill 2019. This bill repeals legislation related to the former Commonwealth shipping line ANL Ltd. In the words of the explanatory memorandum, it does so to remove restrictions against the use of protected names relating to the former Commonwealth owned shipping line ANL Ltd and to remove outdated and unnecessary legislation.

It is worth revisiting the origins of ANL, because it captures some of the significant changes in our society as the major parties have slowly stripped governments of many of the assets they used to own. In 1946 the Australian government established the Australian Shipping Board. In 1956 the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission took over the operation of a number of ships operated by the Australian Shipping Board. They operated under the name of the Australian National Line, and the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission became simply the Australian Shipping Commission in 1974. In 1989 the Australian Shipping Commission was transformed into ANL Ltd, operating as a public company wholly owned by the government. The Keating government tried to privatise it in the early 1990s, but it was the Howard government that eventually privatised it, in 1998.

The explanatory memorandum to this bill notes that the 1998 sale included the assets, the intellectual property, and transfer of staff. Analysis by the Parliamentary Library in 1997 noted that the coalition's approach was harsher than the one previously planned. It said:

The major change is that under this Bill the Government will not retain a special or 'golden share' as provided for under the Keating Government's law. This, in effect, means that many terms and conditions of employment of ANL's workforce are not being entrenched by legislative means. The Government, for example, would have no legislative basis for insisting that ANL's articles of association contain a special provision that the company employ only Australian workers.

The ships have long since been sold, and this bill is only tidying up the legislation to make it a little easier for the current owners. But tragically, though the crucial legislation has already passed, the impact of the privatisation agenda is still impacting many of us across the country in many areas of our daily lives. Fundamentally, there is a strong case for government ownership of key assets. I'd like to quote from the book Governomics: Can we afford small government? by Ian McAuley and Miriam Lyons. It says: 'All economists apart from those under an extreme libertarian fringe accept that natural monopolies require some form of public policy intervention. Disagreement is about details, including definitions (for example, are cellular phone networks natural monopolies, do buses compete with commuter trains?) and on the means of intervention.'

A report by the Grattan Institute identified many sectors across the entire Australian economy that are natural monopolies. They include electricity transmission and distribution, rail freight transport, airport operations, toll road operations and port operations. These sectors and many others have an important impact on people's daily lives. When you use electricity, catch a train or flight, park at an airport or pay a road toll, you may be paying too much—exploited by private companies because governments have failed to act. The ACCC has called out airport operators for how much they've charged for airport parking and the fees they're charging airlines.

That's why I'm proud of the policies the Australian Greens took to the last election. We believe that electricity, banking and the internet should be run as essential services, putting public good before corporate profit. We want to create publicly owned energy and banking providers to stop people getting ripped off by big corporations. In our platform, our plan includes establishing a new publicly owned competitor to private power companies. It would be dedicated to driving down costs instead of driving up profits. We want to establish a people's bank to provide basic banking at cost price.

Governments failed us when they gave in to the corporate privatisation agenda and sold off so many key assets in the nineties. Now we need to focus on the key areas that need to remain protected in public hands. We recognise that, in relation to ANL, the sale has already occurred and we understand this bill is just housekeeping. But we stand committed to a vibrant public sector that provides key services Australians deserve, whether it be electricity, banking or other parts of the economy.