Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) and the Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA) were privileged to be given the opportunity to present at the Productivity Commission's public hearing in a vital part of its review of Australia's Maritime Logistics System.

In a full day hearing held last Friday, 4 November 2022, the following entities had the opportunity to expand on key elements of their formal submissions (FTA / APSA submissions available HERE) and to respond to questions from Productivity Commissioners Julie Abrahams and Stephen King:

Maritime Union of Australia
Ports Australia
Container Transport Alliance Australia (CTAA)
Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) / Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA)
Shipping Australia Ltd (SAL)

The questioning was relatively consistent to all, primarily focussed on industrial relations, Terminal Access Charges, container detention, shipping competition and Australian ports' performance.

CONTAINER DETENTION / TERMINAL ACCESS CHARGES / SHIPPING COMPETITION

Whilst our expectations are managed, following the line of questions and responses from participants, we are increasingly confident that we will see the Productivity Commission retain and potentially strengthen their draft recommendations for incorporation in their final report as follows:

introduce regulation forcing a more reasonable environment for the administration of shipping line imposed container detention charges for both imports and exports;
regulate against Terminal Access Charges (forcing stevedores to recover costs from their commercial client - shipping lines); and
repeal Part X of the Competition and Consumer Act (legislation that currently gives extraordinary protections to foreign owned shipping lines from Australian competition law).

PROTECTED INDUSTRIAL ACTION

Post the formal hearing and in response to questions from Commissioner Abrahams, FTA / APSA made a further recommendation for a change to be incorporated into the Fair Work Act.

FTA / APSA put forward the case that representative bodies should be able to make a 424 Application to the Fair Work Commission to suspend or terminate protected industrial action between third parties (such as stevedores and unions) with evidence demonstrating significant adverse economic impacts caused by the action.

Legal advice obtained by FTA / APSA is that under the current legislation, a representative body would be unlikely to make a successful application as they are not directly affected, or who would be directly affected by protected industrial action.

The recommendation put forward by FTA/APSA aims to protect individual members of representative bodies from the associated exposure in making an Application and would allow a broader representation of views and evidence to be provided to the Fair Work Commission.

NEXT STEPS

FTA / APSA will provide a further update upon release of the full transcript of the public hearing which is expected to be released later this week - in the interim, please refer to the FTA / APSA opening statement presented at the public hearing available HERE.

The Productivity Commission is due to provide its final report to the Federal Government by December 2022. A public release of the final report is not expected until 2023.

FTA / APSA will continue its close liaison with the Productivity Commission in the coming weeks and will be escalating its engagement with the Federal Government in the first quarter 2023 with a focus on delivering necessary legislative change to deliver fairer operational conditions for the international trade sector and to assist in Australia's broader economic recovery.

Paul Zalai - Director FTA | Secretariat APSA | Director GSF

FTA / APSA provide evidence to the Productivity Commission