The government has announced its intention to introduce amendments to the Pilotage Act as part of the 2019 federal budget, which was unveiled earlier today.
Although details on the substance of those amendments will be included in the Budget Implementation Act (which is typically introduced several days or weeks after the unveiling of the budget), the government has indicated that the amendments will focus on strengthening the governance of pilotage authorities, strengthening enforcement provisions, streamlining fee-setting and increasing transparency.
As members are aware, the Federation presented a series of detailed proposals for modernizing the Pilotage Act as part of the pilotage review process, and has made strong representations to the government on the need to introduce amenmdents to the Act prior to the federal election planned for this October.
We will now be awaiting introduction of the Budget Implementation Act in Parliament and will be actively involved in the Bill's passage through the House and the Senate.