Ports reform doomed, says Maritime Union of Australia

The Maritime Union of Australia has said prospects for breaking the nation’s stevedore duopoly are “doomed”.

MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin.

The Maritime Union of Australia has said prospects for breaking the nation’s stevedore duopoly are “doomed”, blaming state and federal governments and competition regulation for the failure of Hutchison Ports Australia’s operations in Sydney and Brisbane.

The MUA, which became ­embroiled in a bitter dispute with Hutchison over the struggling third stevedore’s sacking of almost 100 workers by text message and email last month, yesterday conceded “the company’s predicament is not all of its own making”.

“Indeed, in many ways, they are victims of the dysfunction in Australia’s maritime sector while their bottom line and workforce cop the fallout,” national secretary Paddy Crumlin says.

The union had waged a campaign against the company’s plans to downsize its workforce of 224, accusing it of surreptitiously preparing for automation and secretly subcontracting work. Hutchison, which lost $87 million last year, has consistently argued it is in a perilous financial position.

In a commentary article for The Australian, Mr Crumlin writes: “There has never been a viable economic case for a third stevedore in Australia — not since the 1990s when the scale of containers and the technology being used at our ports reached a tipping point.

“If we’re going to support a third player — and we should — then governments need to stop passing the buck on the necessary infrastructure investment.”

The MUA will today call on federal and state governments to put port infrastructure and regulatory reform back on the national agenda at the Council of Australian Governments. Mr Crumlin, who is also president of the International Transport Workers Federation, foreshadowed the move at the National Reform Summit in Sydney last week.

Until the port infrastructure deadlock was broken by governments, it was likely Australia would see ongoing conflicts on wharves across Australia, he added. Industry consolidation and better productivity between the late 90s and 2013 meant the stevedoring industry was a “success”.

“Enter the ACCC, who ... paved the way for the recent entry of a third stevedore in container ports on the east coast,” Mr Crumlin says.

“Hot on their heels were state treasurers, who saw an opportunity of revenue raising to smother their fiscal shortfalls. Their interest had little to do with delivering cheaper and more ­efficient port pricing.”

The resulting competition had made all stevedoring operators unwilling to invest in technology to make ports more efficient or productive. He adds that the Competition and Consumer Act allowed “legalised cartels” through provisions that allowed shipping ­operators to agree on freight rates.

Last week, the MUA paved the way for redundancies at Hutchison, signing a memorandum of understanding that commits to cuts by mid-October. It is not yet clear how many jobs will go.

“I make no excuses for Hutchison’s treatment of workers at Port Botany and Brisbane, but they are facing the very real commercial reality that without major infrastructure investment and regulatory reform, three stevedores is one too many at our ports,” Mr Crumlin says.

The union, which opposed Hutchison’s 2013 launch, nonetheless negotiated an agreement for its members to transfer to the third operator, including veterans of rival Patrick Stevedores, owned by Asciano.