Today's Productivity Commission report into Australia's Maritime Logistics System vindicates national employer association Ai Group's calls for immediate action to reform our container ports.
As an island nation, 98% of Australia's trade goes through our ports, and the PC found that inefficiencies at Australia's major container ports directly cost the Australian economy an estimated $605 million a year.
"The impacts of this are worn by consumers and businesses, driving up costs and reducing productivity," said Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox.
"As the Commission outlined, disruptions during recent enterprise bargaining imposed large costs on businesses dependent on maritime freight. More effective remedies are needed to limit unreasonably protracted bargaining and industrial action.
"This further speaks to the need to make changes to the Fair Work Act. The MUA has an excessive amount of power in enterprise bargaining negotiations which needs to be kept in check.
"An effective way of addressing the extreme restrictions in waterfront enterprise agreements that drive up costs for the whole community, would be through a Ports and Shipping Industry Code (PSI Code) which addresses enterprise agreement content. The Code could be created through amendments to the FW Act.
"Given that the legislative source for the PSI Code is proposed to be the FW Act, the logical regulator with responsibility for its enforcement would be the Fair Work Ombudsman," Mr Willox said.
