Wage theft from impoverished seafarers working on ships visiting the Port of Newcastle had increased over the past three years, the Australian head of the International Transport Federation says.
The ITF and the Maritime Union of Australia launched a week of action in Newcastle on Tuesday as part of a campaign for legislative changes to improve protection of foreign seafarers.
It follows last year's Robbed at Sea report that found some seafarers are getting paid as little as $2 an hour as a result of underpayment, the withholding of entitlements and the poor enforcement of Australian labour standards.
The ITF detected $4.8million wage theft in 2021, $6.7million in 2022 and $6.7million to date in 2023.
The organisation is seeking to raise awareness of seafarer exploitation as well as push for legislative and regulatory changes to help stamp it out.
NOWHERE TO HIDE 2023 Campaign coming to a port near you! Every State, Every Region, Every Port, there is nowhere to hide #itfseafarers ⚓️ 🚢 #ausunions #auspol #maritimenews pic.twitter.com/sJFvtZwvMV
— ITF FOC Campaign Australia (@ITFFOCAustralia) January 17, 2023
"There's a series of things they (the Federal Government) could do but we are going to have to wait until the end of July to see what the strategic fleet taskforce recommends," ITF Australian Inspectorate coordinator Ian Bray said.
"It's also possible to make some amendments through the Fair Work Act. When some of these ships operate under temporary licences and they pick up the (Australian) award after two voyages. We say that (arrangement) is being abused and they need to close that."
In a worrying trend, seven more countries have been declared under the Flag of Convenience ( a situation where the ship is registered in a different country than the one where the ship's owner resides or holds citizenship) in the past 12 months.
Mr Bray said the ITF had identified a direct correlation between human rights abuses and the level of abandonment of vessels.
"Employers are just taking their ships to places in the Middle East and abandoning them with the crew," he said.
"We have to go in and try and recover the wages and negotiate to get repatriations."
The 2022 Robbed at Sea report used ten years' data gleaned from the ITF's Australian Inspectorate, which conducted almost 5,000 inspections in Australian ports between 2012 and 2022.
It found 70 per cent of ships failed to meet minimum standards for wage payment and estimated foreign seafarers were being underpaid $65million annually.
The report also found large gaps between international and domestic labour standards governing international shipping: "When combined with almost non-existent regulation of labour standards on ships involved in international trading, and an uncertain and under-resourced domestic labour standards regulatory system, seafarers are exposed to widespread abuse."
