Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Migration Amendment (New Maritime Crew Visas) Bill 2020. We Greens actually think this is a very important contribution that the Labor Party has made on this issue. So Labor and the Greens are on the side of fixing a gaping hole in our national security that the Liberal Party seem completely blind to. They seem completely unable to recognise that this is a massive problem. So I'm hoping that, while, yes, it's a private senator's bill, the Liberal Party government will be able to see sense—that here is a solution to part of the problem.

We have this massive problem of foreign seafarers who do not have to go through the same checks and do not have to have the same security clearances at the moment as Australian seafarers do. To us, it is just common sense. It makes sense. As others contributing to this debate have noted, this bill is being introduced in the context of the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020. Others have also noted that, although that bill was dated 2020, it incorporated key elements of a much earlier bill from 2016 which passed the Senate in 2017, only a fortnight after it passed the House of Representatives. So we could have had action on this back in 2017, but the government has been dragging its feet. After that bill passed the Senate, it went back to the House. It went backwards and forwards. But the Liberal Party at that stage refused to pass the bill because the Liberal Party are all over the place when it comes to national security. For all that they like to strut and talk about how this is about national security, they are not willing to act. In particular, they're not willing to act on the gaping holes that have been exposed through multiple Senate inquiries.

I've been in the Senate now for almost seven years, and this issue of foreign flagged ships and foreign seafarers and the problems with national security has been raised multiple times. I call upon my colleagues here to go back and have a read of some of the Hansards from those inquiries, because it is all there in black and white. Their view of the world—that every foreign seafarer who steps foot on our ports is followed around by somebody with an MSIC and we know exactly where they are at all times and there are areas of the port that are designated security zones and we have nothing to worry about—is not what happens in reality. We have had that evidence presented to the Senate. It is there in black and white. We know from what happened in Geelong just a couple of weeks ago that those examples of the lack of security are ongoing today. You have foreign seafarers who are able to get through that security and get their passports and go off into Australia. And they're the people that we know about. Then there are the ones that actually don't have to abscond; they just have some time onshore having not had the security clearances that they should have. Who knows what arrangements they could be making when they are meeting with people when they are here in our port cities?

This happens. We know it happens and yet there has been nothing done to address this gaping hole in our national security.

The bill in front of us would make a significant improvement by creating new classes of maritime crew visas, and it would create a framework that could begin to address some of these risks, but the Liberals won't act. They will not act on this gaping hole. Why not? This is not about security. I mean, Senator Henderson was saying that this is a ridiculous bill that's just going to add extra work. What it means is that, if this was in place, it would maybe provide checks and balances with foreign flagged, foreign owned ships that at the moment are not just undermining our security but also undermining the conditions of Australian workers; they are undermining environmental controls as well. Basically, why they're refusing to act is because the government are acting in the interests of their supporters, of their donors, of their mates. They want to keep a shipping environment dominated by foreign flagged and foreign owned ships. They want to decimate the Australian shipping industry, because in the Australian shipping industry, where you have to pay workers a proper rate, you have to make sure that your ships are meeting all the environmental regulations.

Yes, this actually might cost a bit more, because we are not exploiting the workers and not exploiting the environment. These workers on foreign flagged, foreign owned ships, we know, in so many cases are being employed under the most atrocious of conditions. We know that they are being paid an absolute pittance. We know that the environmental controls on these ships are disastrous—but, yes, it means that it's cheap, doesn't it? The people, the vested interests that this government are governing in the interests of—that's all they're interested in. They just want to bring down the cost, bring down their bottom line, get away with paying as little as possible in their transport costs; that is what this is about. This is all about full bore ahead, full steam ahead for those foreign owned, foreign crewed, foreign flagged vessels at the expense of the Australian shipping industry.

The Greens are not going to be part of that. For all the government wants to talk about national security, we can see through it, and the Australian public can see through it, too. Certainly Australian workers can see through it. They know, by not supporting this bit of legislation, you're not governing in the interests of those workers; you are not governing in the interests of fairness. You are governing in the interests of your mates, of your donors, of your friends, who just want to keep the cost down as low as possible and put as few barriers in their way as possible. The Liberal government is not governing in the national interest. I mean, despite all of Prime Minister Morrison's spin doctoring, they're not governing in the interests of middle-class Australians—the quiet Australians, as he likes to call them. You see their position on this bill, and it fits with their position on so many other things. If their handling of the pandemic has shown us anything, they're willing to hand out billions of dollars to their mates in the fossil fuel industries but apparently not willing to pay so that Australians can get the Pfizer vaccine. Instead, as countries around the world are vaccinating large chunks of their population and are able to reopen, we're at the mercy of a leaky hotel quarantine system that the Liberal Party have refused to take action on. They're willing to govern in the interests of their mates and to give billions of dollars to their mates but not to take action that is protecting the interests of ordinary Australians, whether they are Australian maritime workers or people in the leaky quarantine system.

If the Liberal Party really cared about the national interest, if they cared about anyone, they would take action so that we actually had fair conditions for Australian workers. They'd be taking action to create a secure, safe future by acting on the climate emergency, but they only care about their corporate donors. Why aren't they acting on this gaping hole in our national security? They are failing to act because it's not in the interests of their donors; it might cost some of their donors. They've left a gaping hole and are happy to continue to leave a gaping hole in our national security system because it would cost the corporations. The Liberal Party, our government, should be supporting this bill. They should be taking action. They should stop propping up their corporate donors at the expense of actual people around this country.