The case for: Shipping Australia welcomes automation of Patrick Port Botany terminal

“Members of Shipping Australia welcome the increase in productivity that Patrick Stevedoring will introduce with the automation of its Port Botany container terminal in 2014,” said Llew Russell, chief executive officer of Shipping Australia.

“The stevedoring customers, the shipping lines, have suffered for years from low productivity at the Port Botany container terminal. Implementation of a plan to not only dramatically improve productivity but also make it a safer workplace is long overdue,” he said.

“SAL had noted that Asciano was targeting 27 gross box moves per crane hour at Port Botany following this development, which would be a 20 per cent increase on current rates.

“The automated Patrick terminal in Brisbane has worked well but there have been problems with handling of empty containers, and this has been addressed and we would assume this issue would also be addressed in Sydney.

“Whilst automation naturally leads to labour redundancies, it is assumed that many of those workers, with their experience, would obtain jobs at the new Terminal 3 at Port Botany, to be operated by Hutchison Port Holdings,” he said.

Mr Russell pointed out that whilst a cap on the total number of container movements currently exists at Port Botany, this should be removed to more fully utilise existing infrastructure. Importantly, increasing capacity at Port Botany emphasises the need for all stakeholders to collectively work out how they can make the proposed inland ports in metropolitan Sydney more efficient and capable of substantially lifting the number of containers that will be carried by rail.