Last month BHP decided to sack the seafarers on two Australian-crewed ships that carried iron ore from Port Hedland to BlueScope at Port Kembla.

The seafarers were out at sea, in international waters, when they heard they had lost their jobs.

Speaking on the floor of federal parliament late on Thursday, the Cunningham MP said the issue encapsulated “exactly the challenges that ordinary workers and their families are facing across the country”.

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“This is a disgrace on so many levels,” Ms Bird said.

“It's a disgrace for those individuals and their families to have their work pulled out from under them in that manner, where they don't have access to their union reps or to people to support them to deal with that sort of outcome.

“It's also a real disgrace for us as a nation that a significant employer, indeed one whose initials say it's about 'the big Australian', abandons Australian shipping and Australian workers.”

Ms Bird said there had been a 100-year history of ships carrying iron ore around the Australian coastline to make steel at Port Kembla.

She said the country needed "for its own best interests" an Australian fleet on domestic runs.

"I call on the government to have a close look at the action it could have taken in not providing licences for foreign-flagged, foreign-crewed ships to do domestic runs," she said.

"I think it's something that in the long run, as a nation, we need to get on top of."