New Australian Government plans national shipping fleet

Australia’s newly elected left-wing Labor Government has promised to establish a national shipping fleet with additional rules for coastal trading.

The new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was the architect of Australia’s short-lived 2012 cabotage law, which was struck down in 2015.

“It’s a matter of understanding that there’s a national interest,” Mr Albanese told Daily Cargo News during the Ports Australia Biennial Conference 2018 in Darwin. “You need a maritime sector and maritime skills.

“You don’t allow a truck to take goods from Melbourne to Sydney on the Hume Highway, with a Filipino truck, with Filipino standards — why should that be allowed on the blue highway?”

During the election campaign, both major parties came out in favour of a strategic national fleet.