A cruise ship operator says his company is rethinking plans to build a new bigger ship in Australia if the government proceeds with legislation to reform coastal shipping.
North Star Cruises representative Bill Milby said he could not emphasise enough the difficulties Australian cruise ships would face in competing with foreign ships that had foreign crews who were paid less than Australian crews.
He said his board had discussed replacing their 10-year-old vessel True North in the next five years.
"The way that legislation stands at the moment, that will be off the agenda because of the uncertainty," he told a Senate committee.
"We don't want to hire a foreign crew for an Australian operation that takes international and Australian tourists to iconic locations in Australia."
The legislation before parliament will no longer require foreign ships to pay Australian wages between domestic ports for the first 183 days.
Mr Milby said infrastructure and regional development department officials had advised him that to stay competitive he should remove True North from the Australian Shipping Register, re-register it in a foreign country, lay off the Australian crew and hire a cheaper foreign crew.
Mr Milby said he was dumbfounded.
"I am still speechless about it, I really am," he said.
Both the prime minister and deputy prime minister have suggested Mr Milby was mistaken.
"I take offence at that," he responded.
"I do not tell lies."
Mr Milby named the department officials as Judith Zielke and Michael Sutton.
Both gave evidence after Mr Milby, with Ms Zielke agreeing they had discussed various options.
"I did not say to Mr Milby that he should sack his crew and he should reflag his vessel," she said.
"I don't believe I gave advice that he should take that action."
Mr Sutton said they had discussed options available to all shipping operators, one being reflagging.
"We did not give any advice," he said.
Shadow transport minister Anthony Albanese said the government should withdraw the legislation.
"What we know now for a fact is that departmental officials were giving advice to Bill Milby and others that the appropriate response .... was to remove the Australian flag from the back of his vessel, replace his Australian workforce with a foreign workforce, paying foreign wages and being trained offshore," he told AAP.
Mr Albanese said the government believed that the way to get rid of members of the Maritime Union of Australia was to get rid of the maritime sector.
"They have an extraordinary proposition that Australian-based business should compete with foreign business doing work here on the domestic freight task but paying foreign wages," he said.
Share
