Angry politicians take up case of sacked CSL Melbourne crew

MPs have vowed to interrogate the Coalition at Senate hearings after police forced sacked crew members off the CSL Melbourne yesterday.

The new crew aboard CSL Melbourne remove protest signs. Picture: Peter Lorimer

Outraged senators and MPs have vowed to interrogate the Coalition at Senate hearings on Monday after police forced sacked Australian crew members off the CSL Melbourne yesterday.

In an escalation of the political battle over coastal shipping, Labor proclaimed the “brave new world of Malcolm Turnbull’s industrial relations” after the second raid on a vessel inside a month yesterday.

In a sharp assessment of the industry, CSL declared there was a “lack of any economic­ally viable work for a vessel of this tonnage and dimensions in Australian ­waters”. CSL Australia asked police to remove the seamen from the boat, docked in Newcastle, after they refused orders to sail to Singapore to be replaced by foreign crew. A two-month standoff with Alcoa over the similar fate of the MV Portland’s crew ended in a late-night raid on January 13, also provoking fury from Labor, the Greens and crossbenchers.

Senator John Madigan branded the police action “heavy-­handed”, and vowed yesterday to heap pressure on ministers during Senate estimates hearings next week. “More and more it feels like we are returning to the bad old days of the Howard era, when the government saw fit to strip away the rights of working Australians, and those who objected could expect an extremely heavy-handed response­,” he said.

“I don’t think this is what the majority of Australians want.”

Senator Madigan said there were “serious questions to be answere­d by the government concerning its involvement”, accusing ministers of “facilitating” the loss of Australian jobs. The Maritime Union of Australia lost battles in the Fair Work Commission and Federal Court this week against the job losses, which arose when Pacific Aluminium dumped the boat from its Newcastle to Gladstone route after the closure of the Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter.

The government has issued temporary licences to Alcoa and Pacific Aluminium to sail with ­foreign workers.

The Weekend Australian has learned that over the past week, the MUA briefed 18 MPs and senators from Labor, the Greens and the crossbench over the MV Portland and CSL Melbourne in a campaign against proposed changes to coastal shipping laws.

Labor infrastructure and transport spokesman Anthony Alba­nese said: “This is indus­trial relations conservative-style under Malcolm Turnbull.” He blamed the government for “granting a temporary licenc­e to a foreign ship to do the work that is domestic freight, previously undertaken for many years by an Australian ship, with an Australian flag with Australian seafarers.”

It’s understood independent senator Jacqui Lambie also intends to push the government over the issue in committee hearings.

CSL said it was working to re­assign crew members from CSL Melbourne to other vessels in its fleet. “Regrettably, some positions are likely to be made redundant.”