Stop John Howard Sinking Australian Shipping

Maritime unions & miners join forces to save our ships

Kim Beazley could not stop John Howard attempting to sink Australian shipping. Nor can the Senate. It does not need more legislation to see it go down, one ship at a time. At the outset of the election campaign the former Australian National Lines bulk carrier River Torrens returned to our shores flying a Bahamas flag of convenience and crewed with eastern Europeans, but carrying our domestic coastal cargo. The same cargo along the same coast it worked under the Australian flag with Australian crew this time last year. And in the first week after the November 10 poll, as if to mark the third Howard Government, another ship was lost -- the Simunye.

But the battle continues on the ground, where the next three years will see a struggle for the hearts and minds of Australians.

The full page advertisements that ran during the election campaign went some way towards getting public support behind Australian shipping, highlighting the role the Howard Government has played in the loss of one in every three Australian flag vessels since he came to power in 1996.

Members responded to the call for a levy for an advertising campaign funded jointly by the MUA, CFMEU (Mining and Energy ) and Australian Institute of Marine Engineers, ($100 over two months from the majority of members and $40 over two months from low income members). Around $300,000 in full page advertisements ran in local papers covering the marginals and in all major tabloids nationwide.

"The full-page ads were very powerful and showed the extent the Howard Government has gone to in destroying our Australian shipping industry and in the loss of jobs for Australian seafarers," said National Secretary Paddy Crumlin.

It is members money invested in a campaign to defend MUA jobs. The election bought the issue of what has happened under Howard into clear focus. All MUA members must stand behind Australian seafarers right to work.

The advertisements ran in 22 newspapers, including the five major mass circulation metros in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, reaching more than 4,263,000 people or 30 per cent of those aged over 18.

As well the election campaign thawed the previously strained relations between the three maritime unions.

"When we work together we are fearsome," Terry Snee, Federal President AIMPE (pictured above) told MUA councillors. "We're prepared to move forward if you are."

"Our individual unions don't have the strength," said Fred Ross, Director Maritime Policy AMOU. "We should re-examine the maritime federation. No matter how we feel about each other the industry is bigger than all of us."

But if relations between maritime unions can now be described as warm, those with the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division are enthusiastic.

"If there is any union we want to move closer to it's the MUA," said General President Tony Maher. "We're open to any sort of joint initiative. The sky's the limit. The more I have to do with the MUA the more passionate I am."

Maher committed $100,000 towards the MUA legal battle with the ACCC to defend the right of Australian port workers to clean ships holds.

MUA campaign co-ordinator Rick Newlyn travelled with Maher to meet with rank and file committees and branch officials in Raymond Terrace, Penrith and Mackay, Newcastle Launceston and Latrobe.

"If you close your eyes and listen to the rank and file,to their issues and concerns, you'd swear you were in an MUA meeting," said Newlyn. "We're both in the same struggle with the same objectives."

MUA members received a pamphlet and letter delivered to their homes, highlighting the joint initiative statement between the Miners and the MUA.

"The MUA and the CFMEU (Mining and Energy) believe the government shipping policy is a distortion and betrayal of the national interest and the interest of working men and women of Australia. It is destructive to the social and economic fibre and future of our country," it said in part.

Meanwhile Deputy PM John Anderson and Tony Abbot will keep their Transport and Workplace Relations portfolios, with Martin Ferguson retaining his position as shadow transport minister and Robert McClelland becoming the shadow minister for industrial relations.

McClelland told Workplace Express he had three "preliminary" policy priorities: improving employment security; boosting protection for independent contractors by introducing a federal jurisdiction similar to the s106 unfair contracts jurisdiction in NSW; and restoring the role of the IRC in promoting good faith bargaining and worker participation in decision-making.

McClelland was a partner with Sydney labour law firm Turner Freeman, specialising in IR and sport law, before entering Parliament in 1996. A member of the NSW Right, he started his legal career as associate to Federal Court Justice Phillip Evatt, who was the nephew of former Labor leader 'Doc' Evatt.