Maritime Union of Australia

Response:

Nil

Response:

Introduction

This submission has been prepared by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).  The MUA is a Division of the 120,000-member Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), an affiliate of the 1.5 million member Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and an affiliate of the 20-million-member International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

The MUA represents approximately 14,000 workers in the shipping, offshore oil and gas, stevedoring, port services, passenger services, towage, dredging and commercial diving sectors of the Australian maritime industry.  The MUA also represents seafarers crewing government ships.  The MUA is also part of an Offshore Alliance with the Australian Workers Union (AWU) that jointly organises workers across the Australian offshore oil and gas industry.

The MUA represent workers across various areas of maritime operations.  These include:
•	Shipboard workers (ship’s crew) including (i) marine crew; and (ii) in the case of passenger ships, non-marine crew (collectively defined as seafarers).
•	On-water services workers servicing cargo and passenger ships i.e. workers involved in towage, mooring, pilotage, bunkering, waste removal.
•	Harbour/river ferry workers.
•	Seafarers who provide civilian crew to Defence, ABF, AMSA and Antarctic towage rescue and supply ships.
•	Offshore oil and gas industry seafarers servicing oil and gas platforms.
•	Onshore workers in ports who are required to interact with domestic and international ships docking at Australian ports and with landside workers involved in road and rail transportation to and from ports.  International ships include both cargo ships and passenger ships, mainly large cruise ships, by also inshore passenger ferries.  These workers include:
	Container stevedoring workers (including dockworkers who board cargo ships to undertake lashing of containers);
	Break bulk ship stevedoring workers (including dockworkers who board break bulk ships to assist with loading and unloading ship’s hatches and decks);
	Roll-on/Roll-off stevedoring workers who drive trailers and vehicles on to Ro/Ro ships, and lash cargo;
	Cruise ship baggage handlers, operators of gangways or passageways used for the embarkation and disembarkation of passengers and wharf workers that load stores;
	Port security workers.

Executive summary

The MUA welcomes the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA).

In our view JSA and the performance of its function set out in section 9 of the Jobs and Skills Australia Act 2022 (JSA Act) form an important part of the architecture that will be necessary to underpin the revitalisation of sectors of the Australian economy that have been for too long neglected by Coalition governments, such as vital service sectors including the shipping industry (and the wider transport and logistics sector) which supports many other vital sectors of the economy including energy, resources, manufacturing, agriculture/aquaculture, construction and tourism.  Australian ships are an essential part of the infrastructure in building supply chain functionality and resilience.

That architecture will be further enhanced by establishment of a permanent JSA as proposed in the Discussion Paper.

In our view the JSA has the potential to form an important building block in developing and adopting a new industrial policy so urgently needed in Australia, aimed at not only maximising economic and employment opportunity from existing industries as they transform in response to changes in globalisation, technological developments and climate related decarbonisation imperatives, but to build the sustainable industries of the future in ways that deliver the goods and services needed by citizens and businesses, built on sound environmental, social, labour rights and governance (ESLG) practices.

We identify several issues that we believe will be important in ensuring JSA meets the Government’s expectations as outlined in the Discussion Paper and adopts principles that ensures every sector can obtain appropriate support and assistance from JSA, irrespective of labour market numerical characteristics.

We foreshadow that we wish to confer with JSA at the earliest opportunity on the matters raised in this submission and on the strategy to address the acute seafarer skill shortage in the context of establishment of a strategic fleet taskforce which is advising government on establishment of a strategic fleet of 12 ships, creating additional demand for Australian seafarers.

Response:

A comprehensive approach to engagement and outreach

The maritime sector is somewhat unique in that seafaring occupations are certificated by an industry regulator, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), acting in its Flag State Control function under the authority of the Navigation Act 2012 (and Marine Orders made in accordance with that Act).

The Navigation Act 2012 gives effect, inter alia, to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1978, as amended, (STCW), which provides prescriptive guidance on the safety related competencies that all seafarers must hold to be issued with a Certificate by AMSA enabling them to perform work on ships – where those certificates are recognised by AMSA equivalent regulators in all nations.  In that context the IMO provides ‘model’ course content for approved training organisations to deliver seafarer training.

The IMO STCW also specifies the sea time (on-the -job) requirements that seafarers must undertake in order to be issued with an AMSA certificate.

Given those functions, AMSA performs a role in approving training providers of STCW level training, approving courses that deliver STCW level qualifications/competencies on which its Certificates are largely based and provides examiners to conduct oral examinations as a preliminary step to issuing a Certificate.

Given that role which AMSA performs in the training system we suggest that JSA include it in its engagement and outreach when addressing maritime sector skills and training issues.

Response:

No response provided.

Response:

Data, research and analysis

Comprehensive data on seafaring occupations and therefore data on training commencements and completions, and for examining labour market characteristics is almost impossible to find.

We think partly that is because the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZCO) is deficient in that it seems to have overlooked a critical sub-cohort of seafarer occupations – Ratings occupations, which are VET Certificate Level III and Level IV occupations.  The Australian Integrated Rating (a VET Certificate Level III occupation) is the core Rating qualification in Australia.  

ANZCO captures ‘Marine Transport Professionals’ (which includes Master Fisher, Ship's Engineer, Ship's Master, Ship's Officer, Marine Surveyor and Marine Transport Professionals nec – typically higher education qualifications at diploma, advanced diploma, associate degree and bachelor degree level) and includes Deck and Fishing Hands as a subcategory of ‘Labourer’.

Further we wish to point out that Deck Hand is no longer a recognised occupation in the Maritime Training Package or under AMSA Marine Orders.  It has been replaced by General Purpose Hand (GPH) Near Coastal (NC) a VET Certificate Level I occupation.

We urge JSA (and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER)) if it is to continue to be the body responsible for collecting, managing, analysing and communicating research and statistics on the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector to:
•	Confer with ANSCO to rectify the deficiency in its occupational hierarchy as far as Ratings and GPH (NC) occupations are concerned; and 
•	Develop its own seafarer data sets which reflect the actual occupations in the shipping industry, in the Maritime Training Package and in Marine Orders and produce data sets that incorporate a greater level of granularity than currently exists.  The maritime union and industry association, Maritime Industry Australia Ltd (MIAL) would be happy to assist JSA in that endeavour.

On the question of NCVER, we believe it should become a part of JSA so its work it much more relevant to stakeholders and is fully aligned with JSAs labour market and VET data gathering, research and analysis.

A second reason for the lack of comprehensive data on seafaring occupations could be the relatively small numbers of workers involved in seafaring roles.  We urge JSA to allocate resources not just where there are large number of workers involved but across all occupations so each sector can expect a foundation level of data collection and manipulation, data analysis and research.  

Part of the explanation for the relatively low numbers of seafarers in Australia is that the Australian shipping industry has been for too long a neglected industry.  During the period 2013 to 2022 the Coalition Government applied the 2012 shipping reform legislative package designed to revitalise the Australian shipping industry in ways that deliberately undermined and damaged this vital national industry that services many other Australian industries such as resources, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and tourism.

Seafarer skill development has been the collateral damage to this shipping policy neglect.  The result is a critical skills deficit in seafarer occupations across Australia.

These issues are being addressed by the Government’s Strategic Fleet Taskforce that is due to provide its final report to the Government by 30 June 2023.  It will be important that JSA confer with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts to keep abreast of the work of the Strategic Fleet Taskforce in addressing the data deficiencies we outline.

We urge JSA to analyse current seafarer training performance and outcomes and to plan future improvements, undertake seafarer workforce forecasting, assess workforce skills requirements, undertake cross-industry workforce analysis and identify funding requirements to meet further seafaring skill needs.

Not only will this be important to overcome the current crisis in the supply of seafarer skills but importantly to provide a longer term plan to maintain an adequate balance of supply and demand of seafarer skills to account for future demand impacts, such as:
•	The transformation of existing manufacturing technologies creating demand for ships and seafarers;
•	The emergence of new industries such as offshore wind energy, hydrogen and ammonia production creating demand for ships and seafarers;
•	The continuing growth of the passenger cruise sector, creating demand for seafarers;
•	The demand for seafarers to crew Navy, ABF and other government ships to support national security and border protection; and
•	New ship and port technologies, such as conversion to non-fossil fuel propulsion systems, and new ship designs using artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) applications requiring all seafarers to have current competencies in applications of those technologies for ship maintenance, cargo planning and safe operations.

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No response provided.

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No response provided.

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No response provided.

Response:

Harmonising the support measures available to both apprentices and trainees

We note that the seafaring occupations of Integrated Rating (a VET Certificate level III occupation) and Chief Integrated Rating (a VET Certificate level IV occupation) are not listed on the Australian Apprenticeships Priority List (for commencements from 1 January 2023), which presumably means those occupations are not eligible for the Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System, including the wage subsidy for employers.

Given that the STCW standards require there to be both an on-the-job (sea time) and off-the-job component to achieve a VET qualification and an AMSA certificate, the training and competency development characteristics of those occupations are identical to traditional apprenticeships.

In the circumstances we believe the Australian Apprenticeships Priority List should be updated to include those occupations, noting that it already includes the occupation of Marine Cook (VET Certificate III in Maritime Operations (Marine Cookery)) under both the ANSCO Chef and Cook categories.

We also think that all Government advice to stakeholders and clients of the training system make clear that apprenticeships and traineeships where there are mandatory on- and off-the-job requirements to achieve a VET qualification be regarded as receiving identical and consistent treatment, and especially in relation to access to, and eligibility for, Government support payments.

It should also be made clear to approved training providers that they are prohibited from issuing a VET qualification if the trainee/apprentice has not satisfactorily completed both the mandatory on and off-the-job training and is assessed as competent against all the assessment criteria for the qualification.

That requirement should also be included in any traineeship/apprenticeship contract that is signed between the relevant State or Territory agency and the sponsor of the trainee/apprentice.