A large contingent of police raided the CSL Melbourne in Newcastle in February 2016, removing five Australian crew members. "We asked if we could take our bags, but they said they would be brought off the ship afterwards. "I can't believe this — a company using police to get rid of Australian workers." A NSW police spokeswoman said officers boarded the vessel after being invited by the ship's captain to assist with the safe removal of the crew. "The five men left the ship without incident at the invitation of the captain," she said.

"No persons were arrested or detained." The five seafarers after they were were removed from the CSL Melbourne by police. The seafarers had been protesting over their imminent dismissal by occupying the vessel and refusing to sail to Singapore. It is the second time in a month that Australian seamen have been forcibly removed from ships hauling alumina on Australian coastal routes, and replaced by low-paid foreign seafarers. At 1am on January 13, about 30 security guards boarded Alcoa's ship, the MV Portland, which was berthed in the west Victorian harbour of Portland, and removed the five Australian crew members who were sleeping on the vessel.

They were immediately replaced by a foreign crew which sailed the MV Portland to Singapore where it is to be sold. The CSL Melbourne was chartered by Pacific Aluminium, a wholly-owned Rio Tinto subsidiary. It has been hauling alumina from Gladstone in Queensland to Newcastle for smelting at the nearby Tomago Aluminium plant. The shipping company that owns CSL Melbourne plans to transfer it to international operations out of Singapore, and replace it with a foreign-flagged ship with foreign crew members, which the Maritime Union of Australia says are paid as little as $2 an hour.

Both Alcoa and Pacific Aluminium have recently gained "temporary coastal licences" from the Federal Government, allowing them to replace their ships with foreign-flagged vessels and foreign crews. This is despite the Senate late last year denying proposed legislation to open Australia's coastal routes to foreign ships. A spokesman for the Canadian-owned shipping company, CSL, said the five crew members were peacefully escorted from the vessel on Friday morning, and that the CSL Melbourne would now depart for Singapore. He said the crew was removed after refusing to comply with orders made by the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Court this week for each worker to end the unlawful industrial action. The union has expressed outrage at the use of police and security officers to remove Australian seafarers from their workplace, which it called a disturbing trend.

"This is a disgraceful episode in Australian history, when the forces of the state and the police can move on Australian workers, throw them off their legitimate place of work and replace them with labour that will be paid $2 an hour," assistant union secretary Warren Smith said. "We are going to throw everything at a campaign for justice for Australian workers and justice for Australian seafarers." The maritime union has launched heated political attacks over the recent sackings of Australian seafarers. It is pressing the federal government to support local jobs and revoke special licences that permit the use of low-paid foreign crews on domestic shipping routes, which Labor and the unions have branded "WorkChoices on water". Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, leading the push for coastal shipping reform, said the "temporary coastal licences" that permit the use of foreign-crewed ships for domestic voyages were part of Labor's shipping rules introduced in 2012. He said the special licences could be issued in the event that no Australian operators were seeking to carry the cargo, "and that's exactly what happened in this situation".

Mr Truss said the Australian shipping had been left uncompetitive by the previous government. The union said there was "no way" Australian companies could compete with foreign crews that were being exploited and grossly underpaid by greedy operators. "Imagine in Melbourne or anywhere else in Australia if a company replaced a truck driver with someone from the Third World getting paid $2 an hour ... it would be an absolute outrage," he said. Tony Wright and Nick Toscano