Today's High Court decision relating to workers on vessels operating in the offshore resources industry is disappointing.

Workers on fixed offshore installations are required to hold an Australian visa, but the crews on some vessels which perform highly specialised worked, usually of a short term nature were exempted from this requirement.

Many of these vessels operate in international waters and never enter an Australian port.

The Turnbull Government provided the limited visa exemption to both protect and support jobs for Australian workers and provide certainty for the offshore resources industry.

However following the High Court ruling, workers on these vessels will now have to apply for and gain a visa before they can work within the offshore resource sector.

This will add red tape, add costs to industry and reduce the competitiveness of what is one of Australia's biggest export earners.

In 2012, a Federal Court judgement found that workers on these types of vessels were not in Australia's migration zone and not required to hold visas.

But in 2013, at the behest of the militant Maritime Union, the Rudd Labor Government passed unprecedented legislation to extend the migration zone to non-citizens who participate in or support offshore resource activity.

In doing so, Labor put the interests of its union masters ahead of Australia's national economic interests.

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