Barnaby Joyce backs miners in port row

Barnaby Joyce says he is ‘sympathetic’ to Hunter Valley coal producers who want new checks imposed on the Port of Newcastle.

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Barnaby Joyce says he is “sympathetic” to Hunter Valley coal producers who want new checks imposed on the Port of Newcastle to prevent it from increasing access prices without proper oversight.

Mr Joyce said he would seek further briefings on the issue after the Port of Newcastle rejected a request from Hunter Valley coal producers to enter into collective negotiations on terms and ­conditions for access amid an escalating dispute over the port’s monopoly powers.

It is the fifth time the port has rejected the request since April 2020, with NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee saying the refusal demon­strated how an unrestrained monopoly could “use its power to simply refuse commercial negotiations and instead impose its own pricing, terms and conditions”.

In July last year, the NSW Minerals Council made an ­application under the Competition and Consumer Act for the Port of Newcastle to fall under the National Access Regime, after raising concerns about a ­series of access disputes involving the port and miners.

Declaring the port a ­monopoly under the regime would ensure that, if a user could not agree on terms to ­access the port, the ­Australian Competition & Consumer Commission could ­resolve the dispute through arbitration.

Coal producers in the Hunter Valley are concerned the port is overcharging them and will be able to raise prices in the future without restraint or oversight from a regulator.

Mr Joyce told The Australian: “At this stage I am sympathetic to it being listed (under the National Access Regime) but am taking some more briefings.”

ACCC chairman Rod Sims last week warned that many monopolies – including gas pipelines, electricity networks and railways – were subject to regulation but that many ports and airports were largely unregulated due to decisions that were taken when they were privatised.

He suggested a way to prevent this would be for governments to agree not to privatise assets unless a competition assessment had first been conducted by a regulatory body, or for a new test to be introduced to determine whether assets with significant levels of market power should face some form of regulation.

“These are important issues that deserve more discussion among those interested in the health of the economy,” Mr Sims said.

The Australian revealed last month that major Hunter Valley coal producers, including Glencore Coal Assets Australia, Malabar Resources, Whitehaven Coal Mining, Peabody Energy Australia and Yancoal Australia, had banded together and written to the Port of Newcastle requesting it enter into collective talks on terms and conditions for access.

Other companies which joined the push included Idemitsu Australia Resources, Centennial, MACH Energy Australia, the Bloomfield Group and the Minerals Council of NSW.

Mr Galilee told The Australian the port ignored collective bargaining authorised by the ACCC but was, at the same time, seeking ACCC assistance to develop an automated container terminal.

“It’s a breathtaking example of hypocritical behaviour from an unrestrained monopoly that believes it can do whatever it wants,” he said. “The Port’s ongoing monopoly behaviour leaves us with no alternative other than to seek regulatory intervention.”