Shipping Australia CEO, Capt Melwyn Noronha, reflects on the year just gone.
Capt Noronha writes:
“Another year is now in the rear-view mirror and it is apposite to have a little reflection upon what has happened, what did not happen, and, of course, what should have happened.
“National cabotage policy continues to hurt Australia. This is the policy which caused price hikes in the cost of shipping, induced a modal shift from sea to land, caused an exodus of vessels from the Australian flag, the loss of jobs (both at sea and on shore), and damage to Australian industry. This is the policy enacted as the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act. The Act has six objectives in its “objects clause”, and it hasn’t achieved any of them. After 12 years in force, that is a miserable failure.
“Meanwhile, industrial relations problems continue to plague the Australian waterfront. Readers may recall that, about this time last year, there were huge problems with industrial relations induced strikes on the waterfront.
“Looking forward, there are several important waterfront related companies due to enter into negotiations during 2025 – with a couple of really big rounds of Enterprise Bargaining due to kick off about December-ish 2025. So, prediction time: in 2025 the Australian waterfront will be reeling from ongoing industrial relations induced strikes.
“Last year, the COVID inquiry report landed. The summary-of-the-summary is that COVID pandemic upended the view that the free flow of goods across borders would continue uninterrupted (at which point we interject here to point out that the free-flow of the shipping part of the supply chain functioned well – ships sailed and carried goods; it was getting access to congested ports and the difficulties involved in moving personnel across borders that was the problem).
“The Report made some damning comments, finding that public officials had limited understanding of supply chains and yet undertook minimal consultation ahead of making key decisions”.
Capt Noronha touched on a wide range of other matters.
Click here for Capt Noronha’s full insight.
