A NEWCASTLE container terminal would add $6 billion to the NSW economy by 2050 and create 4600 new jobs in the Hunter and northern NSW, an economic evaluation commissioned by the Port of Newcastle has found.
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The report, Global Gateway for NSW: the economic impact of a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle, comes a day after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s bombshell decision to take Federal Court action against the way that Port Botany was privatised in 2013 with protection against competition from Newcastle.
A corresponding 50-year restriction on operating a container terminal was built into Newcastle’s privatisation a year later, and the ACCC has decided to challenge these arrangements, describing them as “illegal and anti-competitive”.
The new report by consultants AlphaBeta – headed by former Kevin Rudd staffer Andrew Charlton – finds that half of the $6 billion in economic value would come from lower freight costs.
Businesses in northern NSW would save $2.8 billion in freight costs because of a 40 per cent reduction in freight haulage distance, while businesses in Sydney and southern NSW would save $1.2 billion because of pressure that a Newcastle terminal would put on prices at Port Botany.
A Newcastle terminal would cut up to 750,000 truck trips a year from Sydney’s roads, saving $130 million in congestion and pollution costs and $400 million in infrastructure savings.
Containerised exports from the Hunter and northern NSW would increase by up to $800 million a year.
Newcastle’s restrictions, revealed by the Newcastle Herald in 2016, would add at least $100 a container to the cost of operations – or some $35 million a year for the 350,000-container capacity planned as a first stage.
AlphaBeta’s modelling assumed the fee did not apply.
In a foreword to the report, Port of Newcastle chief executive Craig Carmody said Newcastle was well-positioned to take advantage of a 2016 widening of the Panama Canal that led to another increase in the size of container ships.
Mr Carmody said Newcastle wanted to be Australia’s first “New Panamax” terminal, handling ships with 13,500 or more containers per load, compared with the 5000-container vessels that were the norm before 2016.
Port of Newcastle’s long-term plans would see the terminal handle 1.3 million containers a year in a second stage and 2 million a year in a third stage, with 11 cranes in a largely automated set-up.
But progress relies on the container fee being removed, perhaps by negotiation. The NSW government is standing by its actions and the ACCC says the court case could run for two years.
Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
