As the Newcastle Herald reported earlier this month, Dubai-based ports operator DP World parted ways with the port at the end of July after holding an exclusive right to negotiate with the Newcastle operator for about three years.

Since then, a number of critics have stepped forward to say that DP World’s departure vindicated their belief that the port would not be able to build a market for a container terminal, but Professor Green said the company was still steadfast in its belief that it was on the right path.

Read more: Talk of a container terminal for Newcastle resurface (April 5, 2018)

“We have our own strategy, which we have devised in cooperation with people across the region, in the community and in business,” Mr Green said.

“We will see it through. We will always hear different points of view and always have sceptics and those who think they can run their business better than we can, but we just have to press on because we have an ambitious agenda and we want to see the region benefit from a diversification of its economic base.”

One of the Port of Newcastle’s critics is Robert Gibbons, who was a general manager of Newcastle City Council in the late 1990s and who resides nowadays in regional Victoria, where he freelances as a transport and infrastructure consultant.

Mr Gibbons had his opinions published in the Herald in May, and he said this week that the Hunter’s various stakeholders needed to work together if they were to counter what he describes as “the pernicious effects” of a planning system that was putting Western Sydney ahead of the Hunter.

Robert Gibbons runs a website, Thinking Logical Logistics, and his views on Newcastle are here.

Read more: Problems and prospects for Newcastle container terminal (May 7, 2018)

One of DP World’s arguments against the Newcastle terminal was its proximity to Port Botany, saying that shipping lines did not want to disrupt their schedules.

But Professor Green said New Zealand’s Tauranga container terminal was a good example of what was possible, being about same distance from the port of Auckland as Newcastle was from Botany. As in Australia, the volume of containerised trade had grown dramatically, and Tauranga had capitalised on that with an efficient and mechanised port that had almost 60 per cent higher productivity than the Australian average.

Read more: Government pours more money into Botany as Newcastle pushes its case as a container alternative (May 7, 2018)

Official figures show Tauranga Container Terminal went from 57,000 TEU (20-foot-equivalent container units) in its opening year, 1998, to 400,000 TEU in 2007 to more than 1 million TEU last year. At the more established Auckland terminal, containers went from 690,000 in 2006 to 950,000 last year.

Regular Herald columnist and former University of Newcastle academic Phillip O’Neill, now with the University of Western Sydney, also weighed into the container debate this week, asking whether the region can trust a “private, for-profit infrastructure operator to deliver a sustainable, locally prosperous future”.

Saying the port’s proposal was light on detail, Professor O’Neill said “signing on to the movement of one million containers through Newcastle each year is serious stuff requiring detailed examination and level-headed decision-making”.

Comment: Port’s grand design too light on detail (August 19, 2018)

Responding, Professor Green said: “Phil asks legitimate and good questions and I always have a high regard for his expertise but in this case it does so happen that our interest does coincide with the general future of the region in the future diversification of our industries and for future high-skill jobs.”