THERE has been no decision made to extend the pivotal exemption to Australia’s Coastal Trading Act 2012, which allows foreign-flagged cruise ships to carry passengers between local ports, CW has learned.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Transport Catherine King (pictured) admitted a review into the Act, exclusively revealed by CW earlier this year (CW 28 Mar), had yet to even begin.
“The government has committed to review the Coastal Trading Act in response to the Strategic Fleet Taskforce’s recommendation,” she said.
“That review will begin shortly and will consider a range of issues relating to the Coastal Trading Act, including cruise ship exemptions…no decisions have been made regarding the current exemption,” she added.
Cruise lines were kept waiting until the 11th hour at the end of the last exemption period in Dec (CW 14 Dec), with King delaying a decision on the Act until just weeks before its expiration.
The anticlimactic announcement also saw the exemption only granted for an extra 12 months, as opposed to the prior five-year waiver issued in 2018.
Regulatory uncertainty has caused significant problems for the local sector, particularly in the wake of the closure of P&O Cruises Australia (CW 04 Jun).
Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy told this masthead regulatory challenges in Australia were hampering the company’s ability to do business Down Under, which played a part in the decision to retire the P&O brand.
“More regulation creates more risk and more cost, and so those are big headwinds for us, and it also creates a lot of uncertainty for the operation in the future,” she said.
Cruise Lines International Association Managing Director Joel Katz also reinforced the significant costs and operational complexities lines encounter when planning operations in Australia in an recent opinion piece for Cruise Weekly sister title travelBulletin – READ HERE.