Down at the docks, the dispute between the Maritime Union of Australia and Victoria International Container Terminal is entering its second week.
It began when an employee was dismissed, either due to his lack of security clearance, according to VICT, or because of his contact with Fair Work Australia, according to the MUA.
The Victorian government has offered to mediate the dispute, but so far, there has been no resolution.
We at the Victorian Farmers Federation aren’t in a position to solve this issue – but we can point out some of the impacts of letting it drag on.
This industrial action hits us twice. Firstly, there’s the cost of the perishable goods that are on the wharf right now. We know there’s boxed meat heading to China, our biggest trading partner, which has been caught up in the dispute. So there’s an immediate impact on the meat and dairy produce that’s been delayed.
But there are also long term implications, for farmers and the broader community. We have almost 30,000 agricultural businesses, employing 91,000 people.
Victoria may be one of the smaller states geographically, but we certainly punch above our weight in terms of agricultural production. Victorian exports of food and fibre were worth $12.8 billion last financial year, according to Agriculture Victoria, and accounted for 25 per cent of the national figure. This makes us the country’s largest agricultural exporter.
Our reputation as a clean, green, responsible and reliable producer is an asset, and one that we need to protect. If we want to maintain our position as an internationally renowned exporter of high-quality fresh produce, we need this issue resolved. The longer the dispute continues, the more damage is done.
We need to have faith in our processes – faith in our export terminals, and the reliability of the process itself. We need that faith to be justified. Produce has a finite shelf life – we need to have a reasonable expectation that our supply lines can move it in a timely fashion.
If we can’t trust in that, and our trading partners can’t trust in that, then we’re jeopardising our reputation. This action is hurting not only our farmers, who rely on that good reputation, but also the communities they support.