Senate debates

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

Statements by Senators

Immigration Detention

12:53 pm

Photo of Glenn SterleGlenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start, I concur with the comments from Senator Lambie. Senator Lambie, we can see your passion and everything you said makes sense. I want to reiterate too, the disgraceful comment that letting these children and their mum and dad here into Australia where there's plenty of room will open up the people smuggling; I don't know what goes through ministers' heads at night, where they think that's a really intelligent smart thing to say when they get in front of the cameras—disgraceful. Good on you, Senator Lambie.

I have a couple of things I want to talk about today, but the first one I want to bring to the attention of the chamber. I think it's magnificent timing, because we have sat through this Senate in the last couple of weeks debating the transport amendment bill, and you have all heard my thoughts around shipping, foreign shipping and foreign flags of convenience. I was talking to my very good friend Mr Ian Bray from the ITF. Ian and I go back many years and—proudly, I say it in every forum I stand in—Ian is a mate; Ian is a comrade. We have stood together shoulder to shoulder in battles on the waterfront in Western Australia. He gave me some figures today, and I said that I wanted to put them to the Senate.

The International Transport Workers Federation operate a global inspectorate that looks after the welfare of international seafarers. In 2020 the ITF globally managed to recover some US$45 million—let that sink in—in unpaid wages and entitlements of some of the world's most exploited and vulnerable workers, the seafarers. The world relies on seafarers, as we know as an island nation, to keep the global economy afloat—I ask to be excused for the pun—and this is how they are treated.

The Australian inspectorate of the ITF operates with a team of five full-time employees. This team of five attempts to hold shipowners to account, particularly the shipowners that hide behind the flag-of-convenience nations. In 2022 the Australian inspectorate of the ITF conducted no fewer than 512 inspections around Australia and recovered US$2 million in stolen wages for international seafarers. In 2021, to date, the Australian inspectorate of the ITF has conducted no fewer than 211 inspections nationally and has already recovered US$2 million in stolen wages. Given that we are only halfway through the year, this is a terrible sign and further demonstrates that the exploitation of international seafarers is on the rise, which is something I've talked about in this building for many, many years. I am also informed that the ITF's Australian inspectorate has identified a further US$57 million in theft of wages and other entitlements that they are trying to resolve with three companies. These companies are all preferred charters of Alcoa. Whilst not all this wage theft has occurred in the Alcoa supply chain, a fair chunk of it has. Let it sink in: US$57 million. I will remind the Senate that Alcoa is the same company that used security guards to remove Australian seafarers from the MV Portland in 2016. I remember it vividly. They were dragged out of their bunks in the dark of night and marched down the gangplank to be replaced by exploited foreign seafarers—Alcoa.

The MUA warned us that wage theft and exploitation would feature in the Alcoa supply chain going forward, and, given the figures reported from the ITF's Australian inspectorate, how right they were. These figures for wage theft are a national embarrassment, and this government—you mob over there—needs to stop supporting this shameful theft and exploitation. Companies like Alcoa need to take stock and re-employ Australian seafarers in coastal trade and, at the very, very least, take control of their supply chain and clean up this chronic exploitation and wage theft.

On another note, I will bring to the attention of the Senate an infrastructure spend in Queensland. You know that two of my passions, in no particular order, are standing up for Australian seafarers and for Australia's road transport operators. Up in Gatton—that's in Queensland—the federal and state governments had a bit of money after the construction of the Toowoomba bypass. They had about $18 million left that they put towards building a decoupling facility, in the terminology of today's bureaucracy and governments. In my day we called them road train assembly areas. Anyway, let's call it a decoupling facility. It's called the Gatton Heavy Vehicle Decoupling Facility, and it is accessible from the Warrego Highway adjacent to Hausers Road in Gatton. Good on the two governments for getting together to provide these road train assembly areas—let's talk normal language, shall we?—so our truckies can get out there, chuck the second on the third—I don't know what they do out in Gatton. I don't know what's going in and out of there, but I know that this is where road trains are hooking up and unhooking and all that sort of stuff. They have told me there are about 30 truck-parking bays. It's not a very big one; it's quite small. What happens is that you have dog runners coming out from Brisbane and dropping out to Gatton where the other driver will follow. They hook up the dolly on the other trailer and off they go—choof, choof—heading east, which means we keep the road trains out of the metropolitan area, for obvious reasons.

I want to congratulate the two governments for having the nous to do something like this. They would have done this because there would have been a fair bit of pressure not only from the community but also from the trucking industry. But, ladies and gentlemen, if you're going to spend $15 million of infrastructure to do the truckies a favour, as part of the favour wouldn't you consult the road transport industry and say, 'Hey, we're going to build this facility, and we'll tell the community it improves safety'? I'm not going to argue that it improves safety. You would say, 'We'll tell the community it increases capacity,' whatever that means, and 'We'll tell the community that it improves network efficiency and the road transport industry.' Right. Tickety-boo. No worries. You would say, 'It reduces travel time.' As an old truckie, that's absolutely magic. If it reduces travel time, you get home to see mum and the kids earlier; even better. You would say, 'It contributes to the economy.' You've got to expect that line to be thrown in. I don't know how, because the bigger the trucks get the more cheap freight we cart. Anyway, that's the world according to Sterle. And you would say, 'It contributes to regional growth.' Der! Okay, good. Fantastic.

Now it's come to my attention that we have a campaign being led, over Facebook, by a Mr Wes Walker. I don't know Wes but I reckon he's a damn good bloke. Wes Walker is not a truckie but he has a lot of mates who are truckies. They've been talking to Wes. He's absolutely had a gutful. Do you know why? The government has spent $15 million in the best interests of our truckies but there's no toilet! Senators, in 2021—let that sink in—we have a road train assembly area, we've spent $15 million but no-one thought that the truckies might like a toilet. If they had one ounce of understanding of what us truckies do, they would have come and asked the truckies. But don't worry about that. If the milk's not on the shelf or the loaf of bread isn't there, they'll soon tell us what they think of us truckies. Anyway, the guys are here, they're uncoupling and they might even want to have a shower.

I remember running the campaign back in the nineties to get the Wubin road train assembly area done in WA. We were pretty proud. We got a big hunk of dirt and put some bitumen on it and we put toilets and showers on it. God help us, we even put lighting in. We wanted our truckies to be able to come in, unhook, pull the air lines out, pull the light lead out, drop the leg on the drawbar and dolly—and you beauty. Three hours from home and I might even have a tub. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with expecting our truckies to want to have a shower? But something as basic as a toilet, we can't even get that.

The best transport publication in this nation is Big Rigs. If you want to know what's going on in the trucking industry, just get hold of James Graham at Big Rigs. He'll tell you. They spoke to a female truck driver. God help us, I'm doing everything I can do get more women into the trucking industry. She's quoted in this article. She said that she went into the road train assembly area the other night. She was squatting down—this is disgraceful—and another truck came and shone his lights on her as he came around the corner. I mean, really, in 2021? Do I have to stand in this Senate to plead with someone with half a brain to go and talk to the truckies who are using these facilities, before you spend our taxpayer dollars, to get what they want?

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