Carnival Cruise Line’s Australia operations have become the target of a campaign by the Maritime Union of Australia (NMU), which this week resulted in an unscheduled inspection by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). The cruise line is calling the MNU’s actions an effort to get attention and launch a membership drive, while the union is accusing the cruise line of low wages and poor working conditions aboard its ship homeported in Australia.
Carnival Cruise Line has operated in Australia since 2012, and in 2025, it consolidated its operations with the storied P&O Australia, which had been cruising from Australia for more than a century. Carnival rebranded two P&O cruise ships as Carnival Adventure and Carnival Encounter. The ships, each 108,865 gross tons with accommodations for 2,500 passengers, were built in 2001 for Princess Cruises and operated from Australia since 2022. Each ship has over 1,100 crewmembers. Carnival also operates one of its large ships year-round from Australia and has a second ship seasonally in Australia.
The MNU launched its campaign in January, charging “extreme exploitation” of the crew working on Carnival’s ships. They alleged low wages, tight living conditions, and poor working conditions. They were quick to point out that the cruise line employs mostly people from India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, calling them some of the “poorest economies on the earth.”
The MNU had announced it would stage a demonstration in the...
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