The Australian Shipowners Association has commented on the recent passing of shipping reforms with the release of the Australian Maritime Industry Census, the Australian Maritime Workforce Development Strategy and the Government's funding announcement supporting seafarer training and the Australian Maritime College.
These announcements build on the "historic" shipping reforms passed by the Federal Government last year.
"For the first time, the Australian Maritime Industry Census gives us a robust understanding of the current status of the maritime workforce", said ASA's acting executive director, Angela Gillham.
"This is a much needed initiative and will enable the industry to review their workforce needs and plan their training efforts accordingly. It will also provide a greater understanding of workforce demographics as well as clearly identifying where the training efforts should be directed" she said.
The Government announced A$5 million of funding to assist the Australian shipping industry in meeting future workforce training needs, as well as A$12 million over four years in additional funding for the Australian Maritime College.
The work of the Maritime Workforce Development Forum, a forum involving government and industry representatives, who undertook to deliver the Australian Maritime Industry Census and the Australian Maritime Workforce Development Strategy, has produced a training target and a set of key recommendations to help ensure that the industry is able to achieve these targets.
One of the key recommendations from the strategy is to introduce a training contribution for all users of maritime skills.
"The Australian shipping industry has some real structural issues related to how we train our seafarers to meet the needs of the entire maritime industry" said Ms Gillham.
"There is no doubt that the current industry training effort falls disproportionally upon too few industry participants. We need to equitably broaden the base of contributions to the development of maritime skills and include those sectors who cannot train" Ms Gillham said. "However, there is still some work to do in order to determine how best this should be done".
"The Government's funding announcement is very welcome" said Ms Gillham. "And we look forward to the work of the Maritime Workforce Development Forum continuing through the implementation of the strategy".