Maersk, the world's largest shipping line, has stopped imports arriving in Sydney, a strong response to the wharfie union's industrial campaign that is stretching supply chains already under COVID-19 pressure.

Fashion wear, hand sanitiser, electrical products and furniture are inside some of the thousands of multicoloured containers subject to 11-day delays, or forced to head instead to Melbourne as a result of action affecting all three major stevedores at Port Botany, port of the country's biggest city.