Jim Wilson

Charles Masters, Secretary, Shipping Australia’s Victoria Committee writes: “The year began with Ports Victoria announcing the appointment of a Harbour Master from the United Kingdom effective March 2025. The position had been vacant for some time with most functions fulfilled by deputy staff. Shortly after the announcement it became apparent the appointment would not materialise...

“As a vast island continent, we have always relied on maritime shipping as the backbone of our trade,” Senator the Hon. Bridget McKenzie writes in our Foreword to our Annual Review. “As a new year dawns and Canberra policy makers return to their desks, they should resolve to working with our maritime industry on putting...

” For more than half a century, open trade has helped make Australia more prosperous, dynamic and resilient. Yet around the world, support for openness is fraying. Tariffs are creeping back. Multilateral institutions are struggling to maintain the rules that once made the global system predictable,” writes the Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP, economist and...

Billions of dollars of goods and commodities are exported every year from Australia. And where in the nation are they exported from? “Well, they come from our regions. Around two-thirds or $400 billion is generated in regional Australia, writes the Hon Kevin Hogan MP, the Federal Member for Page in New South Wales. “And how...

Shipping Australia’s Chair, Phil Holmes – a member of the Australian shipping industry’s leadership and an expert in shipping – has reviewed a variety of events in the international shipping environment. (For the domestic review, please see Capt Noronha’s review). “The year just gone was the year of Trumpian trade wars and tariffs. How do...

Captain Melwyn Noronha, the CEO of Shipping Australia takes a look in the rear view mirror and talks about several of the domestic shipping, trade, and supply chain issues that occurred last year. (Please see the item by Mr Holmes for the international perspective). Includes: Supply chain aspects of disaster management The Single Maritime Window...

Australian container port performance has been demonstrably underperforming over a five-year period, according to the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index 2020 to 2024. Before we go on, there have been several arguments advanced to downplay or discredit the work of the World Bank. We didn’t think those arguments would stand up to scrutiny, so...

“The aim of the CPPI is to provide an objective measure of container port performance, identify global or local trends in maritime container trade efficiency, and highlight where vessel time in port could be improved,” the CPPI 2025 says in its Executive Summary. A good question therefore is whether or not it can be relied...

It is clear that the CPPI can now be used to review port performance over time. To be fair, previous versions of the report did not enable a robust time-based analysis because those earlier versions were focused on comparing port performance within that year. In the most recent report, the earlier data was “normalized”. That’s...

Being a big port isn’t the key to performing well, the CPPI indicates. Good management is the key. Any port could, in theory, boost its performance by copying the good management practices of high-scoring ports. Adopting digital systems was one driver of improved performance. As the report says on page xv: “the CPPI confirms that...