At the time of writing*, it has been revealed by the NSW State Government that the NSW Treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, will table boxes of documents related to the controversial port privatisation programme carried out in 2013 by the Baird NSW State Government.
A long-term lease for Ports Kembla and Botany was sold to NSW Ports in 2013 for AUD$5.07 billion. Taking into account inflation, that figure would be worth about AUD$6.74 billion today, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia Inflation Calculator. A basket of goods valued at $100 in March 2013 would be valued at just under $133 today. Port of Newcastle was leased the following year for $1.75 billion (approximately $2.27 billion today; $100 of goods in 2014 would be valued at $129.88 today).
Under the former government’s ports deal, the state would be liable to compensate NSW Ports if the Port of Newcastle were to develop a competing container terminal. In a report commissioned by NSW Treasury, Deloitte Access Economics has estimated that that liability to the government could range anywhere between $600 million and $4.3 billion in today’s dollars out to the end of the contract in 2063.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said, “after more than a decade, the people of NSW are finally seeing what the impact of selling off their assets looks like. They shouldn’t have had to wait this long to see these contracts. All this government had to do was ask. The public deserves to know exactly what is in the agreements made when public assets were privatised”.
*At the time of writing, the Treasurer had announced his intention to file the documents in Parliament but the details have not yet been released to the public. Shipping Australia will be on-site making final arrangements for, and attending, the biennial Port Kembla Luncheon on Friday 22 March 2024 and so will not be able to provide an update until after the event.
