Shipping Australia’s Victoria / Tasmania Secretary, Charles Masters, reviews 2023:
“The past year provided interesting subjects for the State Committee. Quarantine inspections on cargo discharged from Roro’s created considerable delays forcing operators to seek alternate discharge ports. The State Committee noted reports of a ferry operator in the Northern Hemisphere placing a ban on the loading of EV’s. Equally two incidents elsewhere of vessels loaded with EV’s involving fire…
[Meanwhile] data received from two terminal operators highlighted there was a large percentage of mis declared import weights reported and to a lesser degree exports. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) for its part focused on the exports believing they could have jurisdictional input to bring about the required discipline…
The Port of Melbourne successfully completed the first stage of the Inland Rail Project at Swanston Dock whose purpose was to reduce truck movements around inner Melbourne. A
project estimated to cost $300 million and funded by a $10 per teu levy on import containers. Since its completion, planning for a rail connection to Webb Dock has not commenced and
information around this has been scant. Import containers at Webb Dock are equally subject to this levy. More to the point we are pressing for transparency”.
For more details of these, and other, issues, please read the full report here.
