The NSW Freight and Ports Plan has been generally welcomed by industry groups including the Australian Logistics Council and Ports Australia as a solid start to meeting the future demands of a growing freight task.
Shipping Australia recognises the strengths of the plan and congratulates the NSW Government for delivering a plan which includes measurable initiatives that will help to achieve key goals economic growth, efficiency, connectivity and access, capacity, safety and sustainability.
“It is encouraging to see confirmation of ongoing use of coastal shipping to provide bulk building materials to the Sydney CBD and support for investigation into a national coastal shipping framework,” Shipping Australia Limited CEO Rod Nairn said. “But there are no specific targets to increase utilisation of the latent coastal shipping capacity represented by the number of empty containers exported from NSW.”
Shipping Australia’s submission recommended that the number of empty containers being exported from NSW be adopted as a measure of wasted freight capacity, and targets be set to reduce that number by increased utilisation of coastal shipping and greater hinterland connectivity to further enable exports.
“In what is otherwise a very well-developed plan it is disappointing that this measure has not been adopted, this is a missed opportunity from my perspective. If specific targets are not set to reduce existing spare container freight capacity there will be no imperative to pursue initiatives to improve it” Nairn concluded.
Editor’s note:
For additional information contact Rod Nairn, chief executive officer on 0449 902 457.
Shipping Australia is a peak national shipping association comprising 27 member shipping lines and shipping agents that would be involved with over 70 per cent of Australia’s container and car trade, over 60 per cent of our break bulk and bulk trades, and significant cruise ship and tug operations.
