Bill Shorten lashes corporate Australia over call to dump contracts with locally-crewed ships

Bill Shorten has accused business of jeopardising national security by sinking contracts with locally-crewed vessels.

A ship berthed at the Port Kembla steelworks in Wollongong. Picture AAP

Bill Shorten has accused Australia’s biggest companies, including BHP, of jeopardising national security by dumping Australian-crewed merchant vessels, warning there could ultimately be no locally-flagged ships servicing the coastline.

In a blistering assault on big business, the Opposition Leader claimed a rush of privatisation ahead of the Second World War meant there were not enough vessels and seafarers available in the Merchant Navy to supply the war effort against fascism.

His attack came after BHP decided to no longer contract with two Australian-crewed vessels to ship iron ore from Port Hedland in Western Australia to BlueScope’s steelworks at Wollongong in NSW.

“I am outraged that we’re going to have no Australian ships left on the Australian coastline,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Brisbane.

“At the start of the Second World War, because we’d 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.

“Why does corporate Australia, the big end of town, think the next quarter’s profits are more important than our environment, more important than Australian jobs, and more important than Australia’s national security?”

Mr Shorten’s opposition has been urged by the CFMMEU shipping union to defend Australian seafarers against competition from foreign-flagged competitors.

He has targeted BHP specifically following its decision, telling supporters in Queensland that he was concerned about seafarers indirectly employed by the company losing their jobs.

Labor has talked about government supporting the creation of a “strategic fleet” of merchant vessels to assure key roles such as shipping fuel, and encouraging more Australians to enlist with foreign international shipping companies by exempting them from income tax.

“We are determined to get more ships registered in Australia and more Australian seafarers working along the Australian coastline,” Mr Shorten said.

“For me this is not a matter of class war, it’s a matter of being an independent nation controlling our transport costs, making sure that we protect our environment and making sure that as an island nation we have ships.

“In the good times, maybe it doesn’t matter to corporate Australia but, in the bad times, we’ll wish we had more Aussie seafarers.”

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm blamed the Rudd-Gillard government for the decline of Australian shipping by re-regulating industrial relations through the Fair Work Act and requiring shipping companies to sign union agreements in exchange for looser regulations.

“If BHP and BlueScope were prevented by Labor from having foreign-owned and crewed ships transport iron ore from WA to NSW, it would soon be uneconomic to do this trip. This would jeopardise precarious steelmaking in Port Kembla,” he said.

Labor has resisted the Coalition’s efforts to allow more foreign companies to compete on domestic shipping lines, arguing it is akin to letting foreign airlines fly domestic routes in Australia.

The law currently requires foreign-flagged vessels to obtain temporary licences from the government to operate between ports in Australia.