Australia’s Dockworkers Take AI Fight to Parliament: CICTAR’s latest report on DP World

Breakbulk News reports on the Maritime Union of Australia’s escalation of its campaign against artificial intelligence driven automation at Australian container terminals on Monday, with the launch of a joint with CICTAR that accuses DP World Australia of planning to cut more than 1,000 jobs while paying no corporate income tax in the country for over a decade.

The MUA has launched an ad campaign linked to the report including this explainer and this hard hitting video

The report was presented at Australian Parliament House at a moment when global energy markets are under acute stress following military strikes on Iran that have disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that normally carries roughly one fifth of global oil and gas supply.

The report argues that DP World, ranked among the five largest port operators globally and owned by the Government of Dubai and Gulf royal families through offshore structures, extracts hundreds of millions of dollars annually from Australian businesses and consumers. According to the MUA and CICTAR, the company has paid no corporate income tax in Australia for more than ten years, with workers’ wages and their associated tax contributions of roughly 70 million Australian dollars in 2025 constituting the primary economic return to the country.

MUA National Secretary Jake Field framed the automation question as a national security matter rather than a labour dispute alone. “AI automation of our ports by foreign multinationals is brazenly in their self interest and contrary to Australia’s national security and economic needs,” Field said. “Allowing the Dubai Ports company to let AI rip in our container terminal networks is a sovereign risk we cannot tolerate.”