Where there is no vision, the people will perish

My birthday this year, 17^th April as usual, was met with the announcement of a new coastal ship. Never mind that it will be 5 years after Albo promised 12 new ships, and it's a 15-year-old clunker that can't get near most coastal communities is a less than promising start, but a start nonetheless!

"You're too critical of Albo" said my wife, "He had the Voice referendum that soaked up most of the funds for 12 ships, but his other policies have resulted in hardship, censorship, union comradeship, ABC championship, socialist fellowship, political brinkmanship, lazy workmanship, so there! You managed to get 7 new ships, be grateful!". As usual she was right, happy wife, happy life.

As a keen participant in the shipping industry I had for decades presented my simple sailor philosophy of "copy success" such as the "Motorways of the Sea" (MOS) adopted in Europe 25 years ago, which removed 60% of truck traffic from the coastal roads within 2 years of the system implementation.

Why take most of the trucks off the coastal roads on our island nation of Australia you may well ask?

Number 1 - we consistently kill 1,300 Australians every year on the roads and 80% of these accidents involve trucks. According to ABStats, that is worth around $3m per death based on complicated assumptions. Trucks, according to most studies, are the major contributing factor in road deaths and serious injuries as you could image, when a 40 tonne truck collides with a 2-tonne sedan and its occupants.

Number 2 - we continue to have 18,000 serious road accident injuries. This is more costly to the community, as the injured survivors need lots of ongoing medical treatment, being pushed around in wheelchairs, NDIS carers etc. etc., so multiply this number by $3.5m according to ABStats and we get into some serious finances.

Number 3 - road repairs and maintenance. Three years ago the cost was $30 billion per annum on the maintenance, upgrade and expansion of Australia's 875,000-kilometre road network, which then equated to $34,000 per kilometre, according to Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics. Again, according to all transport studies, trucks are the major cause of road damage.

Number 4 - road congestion - and we all know about that, don't we? The curious formula that assigns the cost of this is bewildering, but trust me, it's in the millions.

Number 5 - road emission – using a simple exercise by taking a 1,000 TEU (20 foot containers) feeder ship will use just 8% of the fuel consumption and emissions of a truck mounted container over the same distance. The ship of course doesn't create potholing, nor will it jackknife, or contribute to congestion. This is a no brainer!

Now that you are totally convinced about the need to copy success on our island nation, with most of the population living around the coastline, yes, let's get trucks off the road! Let's get an Australian Motorway of the Sea, let's call it OZMoS! This could easily implement savings of $35 billion per annum, check for yourself!

Well actually, I have done presentations on OZMOS for the last 25 years, at bipartisan Coastal Shipping hearings federally and in several states and with all key political figures. Yes, even the Greens who should have embraced coastal shipping for its amazing environmental advantages. Thanks to Matthew Sheahan and ADVANCE, he has clearly shown that the Greens are not interested in the environment and just want to bring Australia down, like socialist labor troglodytes.

The unions are a close second bunch of bedwetters, with no vision and when I went to sea out of Geelong in 1963, the Seamans Union of Australia was under Vic Elliott, an avowed socialist and outspoken member of the communist party. There were 135 coastal ships at the time, and now there are just 9. The fleet has almost perished, confirming the results of lack of vision. The last Secretary of the Maritime Union, Paddy Crumlin did nothing to halt the demise of coastal shipping and the number of Australian seafarers. He and I exchanged our different views several times. Know a man by his works.