2022 Election Overview
The Results
It appears increasingly likely that the ALP will form a majority government. The full Ministery is due to be announced this coming Wednesday. Early indications are that Catherine King is keen to retain the transport portfolio that she has held in the shadow ministry. We are not aware of any other potential candidates for this role however are expecting a reshuffle within the ALP portfolios and anticipate this will be finalised in the coming weeks.
Other key portfolios include Industrial Relations (likely Tony Burke), Minister for Climate Change and Energy (Chris Bowen held this in Shadow Minister). Of interest will be who will take on the Home Affairs portfolio after Kristina Keneally was defeated. Terri Butler who was the shadow Minister for the Environment and Water also looks to have been defeated.
The Opposition has today announced changes to the leadership of both the Liberal and National Parties – with Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley elected as the Liberal leader and deputy and David Littleproud as the new leader of the Nationals.
While the House of Reps result is interesting, and clearly the high profile losses (on both sides) and the rise of the teal independents signals a new phase of politics (perhaps one where electorates are not taken for granted), the Senate result is equally fascinating.
Jacqui Lambie Network is likely to have won a second Senate seat in Tasmania. The candidate Tammy Tyrell is well known to MIAL, having been on Jacqui’s staff for many years.
Ben Small (Liberal WA) appears to have lost his Senate spot. This is a pity as Ben is from the maritime industry, thus actually knows something about it.
Rex Patrick has not been re-elected. Rex had a working knowledge of shipping policy and was very engaged on matters concerning the offshore/Northern Endeavour.
Amanda Stoker (LNP QLD) has not been re-elected. She had been quite positive about the Australian shipping industry and supports some women in maritime events.
Jim Molan (Lib NSW) is likely to be elected. Jim is a vocal advocate to do more to secure Australia.
Regardless of the final makeup of the Parliament, or the changes to the opposition leadership position, since we secured bipartisan support for certain shipping policy measures prior to the election, it is hoped that those measures will be quickly dealt with and that the taskforce identified by the ALP will be equally quickly convened to consider other measures.
The Policies
The ALP announced their shipping policy on 3 Jan. Read more about that here: https://www.alp.org.au/policies/strategic-fleet.
That we achieved bi-partisan commitments to create an Australian shipping industry puts us in a strong position to focus on getting key improvements implemented quickly to commence the regrowth of the industry.