In a speech at Macquarie University, Mr Carmody said this vacuum leaves Australia unable to handle ultra-large container vessels.
While ports policy is supposed to be the responsibility of state governments, it “bears little to no relationship to what is happening globally in shipping”, and “port operators have been left to determine the infrastructure and asset needs of Australian importers and exporters into the future”.
While ports around the world have been upsizing their infrastructure to service ultra-large container vessels, Australia’s major east coast ports are typically handling container ships of only about 5,000 teu.
Mr Carmody said some shipping channels are not big enough for larger vessels, and the available land area in existing ports is constrained by urban encroachment. Neither are the existing container ports able to handle long trains.
“I suggest the strategy for solving the wicked problem of ports and shipping policy in Australia is for governments to do their job of understanding the global developments in shipping and ports and to ensure that private operators of maritime infrastructure are preparing for these future developments,” he concluded.
