News / Shipping Australia calls for end to 'disruptive' port strikes

© Dzmitry Skazau

Lobby group Shipping Australia (SAL) has urged Australia’s federal workplace and state and territory ministers to end the country’s “disruptive waterfront industrial action”. 

A union campaign against logistics provider and terminal operator Qube has been ongoing for months, with strikes under way, or due, at Brisbane, Port Kembla, Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin and Fremantle. 

While Qube’s regional ports handle a small volume of containers, the strike mostly impacts sectors such as automotive, heavy and odd-shaped machinery and a wide range of construction materials, such as large beams. 

SAL warned: “Make no mistake, while this industrial action may be slow-moving, and is not as visible to the everyday Australian as other shipping and port sectors, this disruption will surely begin to cripple our economy.  

“Australian families, businesses, and industries will inevitably start to suffer.” 

According to its reports, there have been vessels at anchor off the Australian coast, “with no reasonable prospect of getting a berth soon” and “large ships, full of family cars, bouncing back and forth between the main car import terminals”. 

It added that cars were being offloaded at the wrong ports and then trucked across Australia “at massive cost”.  

The union is reportedly in pursuit of close to a 130% increase in pay. 

“Early on in the negotiations, Qube had already offered a very generous 18% pay rise. Turning that down and pursuing a near-130% hike is simply unjustifiable,” said SAL. 

Today, it called upon federal minister for employment and workplace relations Murray Watt to end the strikes and send the dispute to the Fair Work Commission. 

Its letter said: “We are concerned that the dispute is endangering the supply of shipping services in breakbulk, ro-ro and regional container delivery, to the detriment both of the Australian economy and to the welfare of Australians.” 

SAL noted that while the large container terminals such as Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle were unaffected, the impacted ports are served by smaller container operators that supply smaller volumes of critical goods to Australian families in remote locations across Australia “at a reasonable price”. 

CEO of Shipping Australia Captain Melwyn Noronha said industrial action “is part of a systemic problem with the Australian waterfront”, adding: “Our port sector is subject to a near-continuous campaign of paralysing industrial action.  

“Clearly, there needs to be a fundamental root-and-branch reform of industrial relations law and policy if Australia is to remain competitive on the world stage.”