Thursday, 23 February 2023

Port of Geelong

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:48): (70) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Ports and Freight and relates to the Port of Geelong. Last November the Geelong port was sold for $1.1 billion in a joint deal between US company Stonepeak and Australian union super fund Spirit Super in a 70–30 split. We hope this is a great deal for Victoria. About 44 per cent of Victoria’s bulk freight – worth more than $7 billion in trade – such as grain, fertiliser, cement, timber and wind farm equipment, goes through the port each year. The bulk ports of Geelong and Portland were first privatised in 1996 to separate owners, and competition remains in play today thanks to the ACCC doing its job. However, my concern goes to any significant increases in port costs that might begin to emerge for users of the Geelong port, with revenue forecasts on the rise.

Despite this government’s confected outrage over the privatisation of public assets – as my colleague in Northern Metro has just alluded to – deeming it the Antichrist of the economy, in 2016 Premier Andrews very merrily sold off a 50-year lease of the Port of Melbourne to the tune of several billion dollars. Since then Melbourne port users have been whacked with ever-increasing charges, those users being Victoria’s farmers and producers. For example, the container port charges for DP World Melbourne have risen 191 per cent in five years. The figure is 109 per cent for Patrick and 119 per cent for the Victorian International Container Terminal, VICT Melbourne. In contrast, costs at the bulk ports of Geelong and Portland rose 13 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. It shows what can happen when there is competition, and none. Global traders are not blind to the increased cost of moving product in and out of Victoria. Despite what we may like to think, we are not the only country that can produce clean, green, innovative product. To conceive that buyers will continue to pay whatever we like for our goods, including the add-on charges for port costs, is a dangerous and lazy assumption. So the action I seek of the minister is an understanding about what she has done to ensure that the cost escalation that has hit users of the Melbourne port does not also happen at Geelong port, with potential flow-on for Portland.