STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator SHELDON (New South Wales—Chief Government Whip in the Senate) (13:50): Imagine being paid $2.50 an hour, working up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, for up to nine months. Now imagine earning that little and still having to buy your own soap, your own sanitary products and your own bottled water because there are worms in the drinking water. Imagine paying for your employer's wi-fi to speak to your family back home, having hours of your own time taken away if you call in sick, being served passengers' old leftover food that gets refrigerated and reheated again and again until it gets rotten, or being sexually assaulted with no-one to turn to then pressured to stay silent.

These aren't conditions from some horror fiction. This is happening right now to seafarers working on Carnival ships in Australia. About two weeks ago I went aboard the Carnival Splendour to find out for myself.

I saw happy passengers enjoying the holiday, and professional crew doing everything they could to make their stay pleasant. But on the flipside, there were seafarers terrified of management, scared that speaking up about their pay or conditions would put a target on their back. When I raised these concerns with the captain on board, all he did was deny, deny and deny.

But brave seafarers are speaking up. One told the ABC, 'Sometimes you end up not getting anything that you can actually eat, and you're expecting me to work 12 hours.' Carnival reported record-breaking revenue of $37.6 billion just last year, yet they make you walk the plank for asking about your rights. Carnival have become modern-day pirates in suits who plunder from their own crew.

But there is a way forward—collective agreements are coming across the industry. Carnival can give these hardworking seafarers a voice—they should do a collective agreement right now.