Australian crew on board a petrol tanker in Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay are staging a sit-in to protest against job losses and the increased use of foreign vessels to deliver Australia's fuel.
The Tandara Spirit has been anchored in the bay for the past two weeks and its 18 crew members have refused to return the ship to its port in Singapore because they believe they will be made redundant and replaced with a cheaper foreign crew.
One of the workers on board the tanker, Kevin Miller, said the crew was worried about its future.
"We have to see it out," he said.
"We have the right to carry Australian goods on the Australian coast."
Victoria's Maritime Union assistant secretary Ian Bray said there had been no transparency for the ship's workers, and they would not return to Singapore until they had more answers from operator Viva Energy.
"While they were sitting out at anchor, it was realised that Viva had contracted a foreign-flagged vessel with an international crew, paid wages of about $2 an hour to carry the cargo the Tandara Spirit would normally carry," he said.
A statement from Viva Energy confirmed it would be handing back the fuel tanker once its lease expired next month and it would not be replaced.
The company said it no longer required a dedicated coastal vessel to transport petroleum products within Australia and it was using temporary licences for moving speciality products to multiple ports.
Mr Bray said the crew have not been told whether they had any future work in Australia.
"They can't understand why the company are removing an Australian-manned ship off the coast to put a foreign-manned vessel and pay them substantially less," he said.
Stand-off draws sharp focus on Australia's fuel security
Mr Bray added the crew was also concerned about a threat to national fuel security if unsafe foreign ships were allowed to operate in local waters.
"What happens if the shipping lanes get cut off, we'll have no ships to carry our own fuels, potentially no means to produce enough fuel in our country to keep us sustained," he said.
"So what do we do, just sit there while the lights go out?"
Independent Senator John Madigan told the ABC's The World Today program a Senate inquiry was looking at the issue of fuel security.
"The issue of fuel security does not discriminate between people and regional, rural or urban Australia," he said.
"We're all in the firing line and we will all be affected in the event of a catastrophe."
Motoring body NRMA spokesman Graham Blight said Australia was not taking its fuel security seriously.
"Out of the 75 importing countries that we investigated, we were the only ones that didn't have a fuel security policy," he said.
"Now what are our neighbours doing? Well, since 2008 the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) group plus the big three, Japan, Korea and China, have been working on a fuel security program for the region.
"So the world is taking it all very seriously, they understand the ramifications of something going wrong. Everyone understands that except Australia."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-21/tandara-spirit-crew-refuse-to-return-ship-protest-job-cuts/5909288
Topic: Tandara Spirit's Crew Protest Job Losses (Read 1021 times)