New South Wales’ peak trucking industry body, ATA NSW has urged the State Government to act on landside reforms at Port Botany, following another week of delays at DP World’s terminal.
After a number of weeks of problems, the situation at the port reached a crisis point over the weekend, with truck drivers forced to queue for over five hours in temperatures hovering around 38.5 degrees
Chair of ATA NSW’s Container Section Sub-Committee, Mike Moylan, said the weekend’s situation was the final straw for the trucking industry.
“This is about the fundamental and non-negotiable issue of the safety of our drivers and the broader community,” Mr Moylan said.
“Truck drivers cannot be expected to queue for five or six hours in sweltering heat and then operate a heavy vehicle to the limits of their legal working hours.
“Nor should the public be subject to negotiating their cars through huge truck queues 24 hours a day and on weekends.
“The risk to our drivers and the community is too great and cannot be tolerated any longer.”
Mr Moylan has said the NSW Government needs to act immediately to fix the problems at Port Botany.
“The stevedores control a major portion of the infrastructure that is crucial to the NSW economy,” Mr Moylan said.
“They have shown by their own performance and actions that they are not prepared to effectively manage these critical assets of NSW.
“We will be seeking an early meeting with the new Minister for Ports and Waterways, Paul McLeay, where we will ask him to make the stevedores accountable for their actions by bringing in tough legislation that protects the people and assets of NSW.
“Sydney Ports and the government have given the stevedores adequate warning but it has fallen on deaf ears.”
Maritime union stop-work
Despite several requests, the stevedores refused to make today a storage-free day because of the maritime union’s stop-work meeting, which stopped all deliveries for hours this afternoon.
But just to add insult to injury, after bringing the matter up last week of storage applying today with the MUA stoppage, DP World finally advised yesterday at 17:02 of the following arrangements:
"that after careful review of slot take up and volumes, including consideration of the recent delays due to the system outage as well as the 4 hour stop work tomorrow, on this occasion, DP World will not count Tuesday 24/11/09 as a day of availability".
Mr Moylan said: “Given the belated response, this is just about worthless to most road carriers, as they have already made alternate arrangements to cover the MUA stoppage today and related storage - to let industry know at 17:02 the day before is totally useless.
“It really highlights the lack of understanding of landside operations, carriers have to book timeslots 48 hours out and schedule drivers and equipment and also make arrangements with clients.”
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