Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison recently, and quite correctly, noted that our ports are the gateway for our economy. He is also quite correct in asserting that port inefficiency is a tax on all Australians.
And our container ports are inefficient.
Our container ports can take days to get a ship to berth.
Our container ports take a long time to process ships. Our slowest port takes up to 51.7 hours of on-berth time versus our ‘fastest’ port which takes 29.2 hours to process a box ship, according to the recent ACCC Container Stevedoring Monitoring Report. That’s a 55.6% difference between the slowest and fastest port.
Our container ports don’t work fast enough. The average crane rate is about 28 box moves an hour but it can be as slow as 12 or 13 box moves per hour per crane. As we’ve previously pointed out, slow ports lead to huge costs and delays. Haifa in Israel has proved it can do about 53 box moves per hour per crane, which is pretty close to twice the average Australian crane rate.
Our container ports haven’t improved the speed at which they work. Back in 2000-2001 (twenty years ago) the containers-per-hour figure was about 25. Now it’s about 28, according to the ACCC.
That’s an increase in speed of three box moves per hour over twenty years. When box volumes have increased from about 2.5 million to about 8.5 million in the same time frame, poor port performance can only lead to congestion and supply chain disappointment.
Our ports have been ranked by the World Bank / I.H.S. Markit in a comprehensive “Comparable Assessment of Container Port Performance” as being among the worst-performing ports in the world.
There are, literally, ports in war-torn and bandit-infested countries that perform about as well as our ports, according to the World Bank Port Performance analysis. The same report indicates that there are Alaskan crab ports that perform about as well as our ports.
Ports can choose to remove their inefficiency tax on us. Shipping Australia calls upon Australian box ports to:
- get ships to berth faster
- process cargo faster by getting those crane rates up
- reduce idle time at berth
- reduce the overall turnaround time of ships
There is also an issue with oversight and governance of ports in Australia. The port governance system in Australia needs a bit of a overhaul. Shipping Australia calls for consultations on good quality port governance and oversight system, which must include price monitoring that is tied to port performance.
If Australian families are to keep, and improve upon, their current standard of living, then Australian ports must work both harder and smarter. Shipping Australia calls upon Australian box ports to rise to the challenge.