Peak industry organisations Road Freight NSW (RFNSW), the Australian Trucking Association (ATA), Western Roads Federation and the Customs Brokers and Forwarders Council of Australia Limited (CBFCA) have joined forces to fight the latest round of crippling charges being imposed by stevedores on transport operators across the nation.
The new charges have been announced as the 2018-19 Australian Competition and Customer Commission’s (ACCC) annual monitoring report shows that higher ‘infrastructure access charges’ for port users across the country resulted in revenue for stevedores soaring to $166.6 million- an exorbitant 63% increase on the previous year. The ongoing increases are building unavoidable costs into national supply chains, with stevedores failing to adequately invest in terminal infrastructure to address worsening truck turn-around times and improve overall productivity and efficiencies for transport operators.
Infrastructure Fees are levied by stevedores in Australian ports. Stevedores are essentially the workers responsible for loading and unloading ships. The fees are payable to firms carrying containers to and from terminals (terminal operators). These access fees are supposed to be a means for terminal operators to recover scaling costs, like port rents, taxes and council rates, maintenance fees, labour rates and electricity bills. The reason such infrastructure access and usage charges exist is said to be for ongoing investment in infrastructure to increase efficiency and allow ports to receive even bigger vessels in future.
As an example of the new fees, at Port Botany in Sydney, DP World Australia will increase its container charge from $63.38 to $90.00 (effective 1st January, 2020), while at Fremantle the charge has jumped from $8.22 per shipping container to $45.00 – a staggering 450% increase.
Based on the ACCC’s monitoring report, many industry leaders believe the stevedores’ charges are unjustified. CBFCA Chief Executive Officer Paul Damkjaer has been quoted as saying,“State Governments now need to step-up and act. These ongoing charges are an example of a small number of players in one market dictating terms and pricing, at the expense of Australia’s international trade.â€
Colless Young Pty Ltd looks after your imports and exports at all major ports around Australia. As your licensed Customs Brokers and International Freight Forwarders, we promise to work with industry bodies to keep your costs to a minimum.
