Shorten invokes WWII over shipping overhaul
The Australian 12:00am January 19, 2019
Jared Owens
Bill Shorten has raised the spectre of World War II in his union-backed campaign to overhaul the shipping industry, accusing major companies such as BHP of jeopardising national security by moving away from Australian-flagged and crewed cargo vessels.
Mr Shorten ramped up his attack on companies focused on delivering shareholders’ profits.
“Why does corporate Australia, the big end of town, think that the next quarter’s profits are more important than our environment, more important than Australian jobs, and more important than Australian national security?” he said.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said: “It’s now pretty obvious that the election starting gun has been fired.”
“The reality is official data shows that Australian businesses today are no more profitable than they were 20 years ago.”
The row over the Coalition’s plans to allow more foreign vessels to compete on domestic routes has been inflamed by BHP’s decision to cease using Australian-crewed ships between Port Hedland and Wollongong, with dozens set to lose their jobs.
The CFMEU has urged Mr Shorten to defend Australian seafarers against foreign-flagged competitors.
The Opposition Leader yesterday warned the military would eventually need trained Australian seafarers and merchant ships to help defend the continent as it did in the 1930s.
“At the start of the Second World War, because we had privatised our shipping industries and sold it all off, we didn’t have enough Australian ships to carry our troops to the Middle East, or to carry supplies to Australia. We didn’t have enough seafarers, ships’ engineers and the like. History always repeats,” Mr Shorten said.
Labor has talked about a future government supporting a “strategic fleet” of merchant vessels to perform key tasks such as shipping fuel. It has also suggested boosting the incentive for Australians to enlist with foreign international shipping companies by exempting them from income tax.
Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm accused Labor of sinking the industry by re-regulating industrial relations through the Fair Work Act and requiring shipping companies to sign union agreements before they could register to enjoy lighter regulations.