Published: 29 Feb 2016
The ITF today expressed its disgust at Queensland Sugar's reckless and heartless chartering policy which has rewarded the Ken Sirius, a ship of shame, with a lucrative shipping deal.
The ITF had urged QSL not to charter a Greek owned Liberian ship after its crew contacted the Queensland water police begging for food and water at the anchorage off Townsville.
ITF National Coordinator Dean Summers said minimum stores were only taken out to the crew after the ITF intervened.
But calls not to use the ship have been ignored completely by Queensland Sugar Limited.
The Flag of Convenience (FOC) ship at the centre of this dispute - Ken Sirius - came into the QSL terminal in McKay over the weekend and loaded Australian sugar.
Owned by Greek company “Ikaros Shipping,” it sailed on Sunday to an international market.
“Unless and until exporters and shippers like Queensland Sugar accept a fundamental human responsibility to make sure crew are treated with dignity and respect, they are no better than the scumbag bottom feeders like Ikaros Shipping,” Mr Summers said.
“These obscene violations of human and workers’ rights are being seen more regularly in Australian ports and, under the Federal Governments policies, in our own domestic markets.
The Senate Hearing into "The Impact of FOCs on the Australian Coast" is currently looking into such abuses. The ITF has called this inquiry "The High Cost of Cheap Shipping."
