Australia’s port industry is coming under fire for inefficiencies hitting consumers’ pockets and costing the economy $600 million annually.
A report released by the Productivity Commision, ‘Lifting productivity at Australia’s
container ports: between water, wharf and warehouse examines the performance of Australia’s maritime logistics system, long-term trends in system performance, competition, industrial relations, infrastructure constraints and technology uptake.
It is widely expected to prompt reforms to improve port productivity.
In December 2021, the Commission was asked to investigate factors affecting the efficiency and dependability of the maritime logistics system.
This was reportedly due to poor rankings of Australian ports in the World Bank port performance index, with Brisbane ranked 288th and Melbourne 308th out of 370 global ports.
The report found 20 percent of the gross domestic product is exported via port and imports equate to about 16 percent. Each year, a total of 6,000 cargo ships made about 34,000 calls to Australia.
A lack of competition in some parts of the maritime logistics system means consumers pay too much, the report found.
