ACCC Reports on National Stevedoring Industry
Monday 11 November 2013 @ 1.13 p.m. | Trade & Commerce
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its 15th annual monitoring report on Australia’s container stevedoring industry. Container stevedoring involves lifting containers on and off ships. This year’s report outlines further economic reforms which the ACCC proposes are necessary for the industry to reach its potential in the current economic climate.
Current industry pressures include increasing competition from a new terminal operator, Hutchison Ports Australia which entered the market this year. Hutchison Ports Australia, the market’s first new entrant in some time, opened a terminal in Brisbane earlier this year and is set to open another at Port Botany in Sydney. The Victorian Government is presently tendering out the rights for a new terminal in Melbourne, Australia’s largest container port.
According to ACCC Chairman Rod Sims:
“A new competitor is a welcome development in an industry in which the conditions have not until recently supported the entry of new competitors.”
Directed by the Federal Government, the ACCC has monitored prices, cost and profits of container stevedores at six Australian container ports since 1999, the year after landmark reforms overhauled the industry. The 1998 reforms centred on ending restrictive work practices in Australian stevedoring, enhancing productivity, reducing costs and promoting more effective use of technology in the ship-to-shore task of handling containers.
“The Australian stevedoring industry is healthier than ever before. Landmark reforms undertaken in 1998 have been instrumental in driving increased productivity on the Australian waterfront. The industry is now poised to benefit further; this time, competition from a third stevedore will spur the industry to become even more efficient.”
The ACCC proposed the following reforms:
- Investing in heavy vehicle roads;
- Improving signals for exporters and importers to facilitate better, more informed decisions about whether to use road or rail services to move containers;
- Incentivise truck operators with pricing mechanisms to improve the use of landside facilities, for example peak period pricing, which can encourage off-peak access to terminals.
Patrick and DP World operate at Australia’s the four largest ports—Brisbane, Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney. The newest stevedore—Hutchison Ports Australia—was included in the ACCC’s monitoring program for the first time in 2012–13, with its operations in Brisbane commencing and the terminal development in Sydney near completion.
The ACCC also monitors Flinders Adelaide Container Terminal Pty Ltd, as the sole operator at the Port of Adelaide. At the remaining monitored Port of Burnie, Patrick exited its operations in May 2011 and no dedicated stevedoring service of international containers has been provided since then.
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