15th Aug 2018, 5:19 PM – Representatives Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Amendment Bill 2017 - Consideration in Detail - Acceptable tolerance limits

The majority voted against amendment (1) introduced by Grayndler MP Anthony Albanese (Labor), which means they failed.

What did this amendment do?

Mr Albanese explained that:

Amendment (1) relates to the issue of acceptable tolerance limits. The current act establishes acceptable tolerance limits for temporary licence voyages being plus or minus 20 per cent for the nominated cargo passenger volumes and plus or minus five days for the authorised loading date, without the shipper needing to seek a variation to their temporary licence. If required, a variation must be approved by the minister within two business days. What the bill proposes is to increase the volume tolerance limits to 200 per cent more or 100 per cent less. It also proposes a loading window tolerance of 30 days either side of the authorised dates. This has very serious implications for whether the Australian industry around our coast can literally survive. If you had listened to the speeches of those opposite, you would have thought that the only issue to do with shipping around our coast was about superyachts; it's actually about the capacity of Australian flagged vessels to exist, taking resources and goods around our coastline.

Amendment text

(1) Schedule 1, items 5 and 6, page 4 (lines 8 to 21), omit the items.