Putting maritime policy into practice will be the two year theme for the IMO’s World Maritime Day in 2026 and 2027.
Having a two-year theme is highly unusual for the International Maritime Organization.
IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez, who proposed the two-year theme, talked of the IMO’s commitment to ensuring regulations are put into action. “This ultimately strengthens the confidence that global rules agreed at IMO can lead to safer, more secure and environmentally sound shipping worldwide,” the Secretary-General said.
The IMO highlights that its core mission is to ensure that the global regulatory framework is not merely adopted in principle but is translated into concrete national law and day-to-day maritime operations.
Shipping Australia agrees.
Canberra’s job, however, isn’t just about agreeing to good maritime policy.
It’s about putting it into good practice.
We can point out to a couple of really serious policy failures, which we do, below. However, these are just two of many policies that we could have highlighted. For example, we could have also written about coastal shipping, at sea boardings, port productivity, and regulatory red tape, to name just a few. These areas need to be explored from a productivity lens. We can only hope that they will be discussed at the upcoming Treasurer’s Productivity Round Table!
Single Maritime Window… singularly missing in action
Take, for example, the concept of the Single Maritime Window.
The idea is that all the government-required information is entered into the portal at one time, thereby saving time, effort, money, duplication and preventing mistakes (e.g. typos).
One portal. No duplication. No dumb mistakes.
Then, whenever officials from the various government bodies want that information, those officials can consult the database that lies behind the portal. Whenever it is decided that new information should be obtained from the shipping industry, then the portal and the website can be updated.
Implementing a Single Maritime Window was made mandatory for all IMO Member States (of which Australia is one) from 01 January 2024. The project started at least seven years ago, and probably earlier, when the IMO began a project to launch a Single Window in Antigua and Barbuda in 2017.
Huge benefits from policy implementation
Creating a Single Maritime Window cuts border related trade transaction costs. Studies suggest that such directly and indirectly incurred costs, like complying with government requirements to supply documents, can amount to anywhere between one per cent to 15 per cent of the value of traded goods (Walkenhorst & Yasui 2005).
And there’s a lot of that in Australia too.
There were 6,219 unique cargo ships, which made 17,303 voyages to Australian ports directly from overseas ports in 2020-21, according to the Federal government’s Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics.
That’s a lot of ships inputting a lot of data every year.
At least 19 regulatory reports are submitted via ten channels to at least four Australian government agencies by each vessel arriving and departing Australia. Over 35,000 hours are spent every year by ships on reporting (yup, you read that right, it’s thirty-five thousand hours). Each ship takes about two hours reporting when there are no issues, and more than six if there are. Ouch!
Assuming trade facilitation leads to a reduction in trade transaction costs of 1% of the value of world trade, then aggregate welfare gains are estimated at about USD$40 billion worldwide, with all countries benefiting (Walkenhorst & Yasui 2009).
Countries that have adopted a Single Maritime Window have reported a host of benefits (Tijan et al 2019). These include a 54% cut in delivery times for Thai traders in rice, sugar, and other products; Indonesia cut the use of over 84 million kgs of paper and also reported time savings, and large cost savings from minor measures like using a single billing code; Beijing reported a cut in time and financial costs of 10%; the Port of Shanghai reported a time efficiency cargo clearance increase of 26% for imports and 32% for exports. Singapore set up its TradeNet system in 1989 and cut processing times from seven days to ten minutes while cutting the number of forms from 35 to one.
The deadline for implementing the IMO Single Maritime Window was January 2024. It is now August 2025.
Consider Kenya, Morocco, and that well-known maritime superpower, Cape Verde.
A Single Maritime Window they have got. Australia? It has not.
Why? Don’t know.
Canberra is following a remarkably bold and brave strategy to hold back the Australian economy in this way.
Why? Don’t know.
Localised authorities have done it
By way of contrast, the Port Authority of NSW has researched and largely implemented its OnePort system, which is a large and technically complicated trade-focused I.T. project. So, the Federal Government isn’t doing what a Port Authority actually has done.
Why? Don’t know.
Canberra has clearly failed to implement good quality policy here, one that would benefit everyone – shipping companies, importers, exporters, big Australian business, small Australian business, and the most important people of all, the everyday Australian family. This policy failure is – and should be – very deeply concerning. Canberra’s failure to implement the Single Maritime Window means Australian importers and exporters continue to face unnecessary costs, delays, and regulatory duplication.
Why? Don’t know.
Implementing a good quality Single Maritime Window would boost productivity, which is quite topical at the moment given the Treasurer’s call for a discussion on national productivity. Shipping Australia calls upon the Hon Catherine King, Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to engage in some high quality transport and infrastructure development and to advocate for an Australian Single Maritime Window as a matter of productivity-priority.
Progress on pollution is being held back by a lack of progress from the Australian Government
It’s not just about helping trade along either.
Take, for example, the Hazardous and Noxious Convention (the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 1996).
Lots of processes and products in the modern world require the use of hazardous and noxious substances. As the Earth is largely covered by seawater that means there needs to be a seaborne transport of hazardous and noxious substances. Unfortunately, the world – and the sea in particular – can be a dangerous place. And while ocean shipping is remarkably safe, incidents do happen.
According to the IMO, the shipping, oil, gas, chemical, petrochemical and other hazardous and noxious substance using industries are “committed to paying compensation through an international system, and the HNS Convention provides the framework [for] just such a system. The HNS Convention benefits all State Parties (producing, receiving and coastal States) by establishing a system of strict liability and clear claims criteria”.
This Convention is unequivocally A Good Thing.
Shipping, major manufacturers step-up
The world’s major industries have stepped up, have accepted liability for potential pollution, and have created an international legal framework in which clean-up costs and compensation can be paid promptly and effectively when, inevitably, there is an accident involving hazardous and noxious substances.
The HNS Convention was unveiled in 1996 with an update in 2010.
So, let’s ask you a question.
“Given that it is now August 2025 and given that the HNS Convention was introduced in 1996, has Australia ratified the HNS Convention?”
No, of course not.
Why? Don’t know.
What we do know, is that when industry has stepped up, Canberra stepped away.
Time to act
Singapore has modernised. Jakarta has improved. Cape Verde has led the way.
Canberra, however, continues to allow our international trade to be tied-up in red tape. That’s not productive.
Why? Don’t know.
Maybe Canberra should phone up Cape Verde and ask to borrow some of their experts for a while? They clearly know how to finish a project.
On second thoughts, they’re probably too busy to take Canberra’s phone call because they’re, y’know, implementing good maritime policy.
The IMO Convention talks about the promotion of the availability of shipping services to the commerce of the world. It’s literally in the first article. If the current Canberra can’t, or won’t, live up to the productive and beneficial ideals that were agreed to by their foresighted forebears, then maybe they should consider resigning from the IMO Council. Because they certainly wouldn’t be living-up to the noble spirit of international harmony, cooperation, and comity.
Shipping Australia calls upon the Federal Minister King and the Federal Government to hurry up and implement the Single Maritime Window. Canberra should also at least begin the process of evaluating the ratification of the Hazardous & Noxious Substances Convention.
Provided, y’know, that Canberra actually wants to implement good maritime policy.
But, by way of contrast, consider that attitude toward maritime policy implementation in Cape Verde.
It doesn’t want. It delivers.
REFERENCES
“Australian Sea Freight,” 2020-2021, Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics.
“Quantitative Methods for Assessing the Effects of Non-Tariff Measures and Trade Facilitation” pp. 161-192 (2005), Benefits of Trade Facilitation: A Quantitative Assessment; Walkenhorst P, and Yasui, T; doi.org/10.1142/9789812701350_0009.
“Quantitative assessment of the benefits of trade facilitation,” by Walkenhorst, P. and Yasui, T. in “Overcoming Border Bottlenecks: the costs and benefits of trade facilitation,” ISBN 978-92-64-05694, OECD 2009.
“Maritime National Single Window—A Prerequisite for Sustainable Seaport Business,” Tijan et al, in the journal “Sustainability,” https://doi.org/10.3390/su11174570
“The HNS Convention; Why it is Needed,” International Maritime Organization, https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/hottopics/pages/hns-2010.aspx
“Maritime Single Window; Current Reporting Flows,” circa 2023, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
