DP World’s 52pc fee rise at Port of Melbourne labelled ‘exorbitant’
Former competition watchdog chairman Graeme Samuel says the federal government needs to control prices charged by stevedores at the nation’s container ports after DP World increased container fees by as much as 52 per cent.
The light-touch regulation of stevedores, which includes annual monitoring by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is “completely ineffective”, Mr Samuel told The Australian Financial Review.
Vehicles in the holding bay in the Port of Melbourne. Arsineh Houspian
The privatisation of most Australian container ports had created “rampant high prices” and federal infrastructure and trade ministers needed to “start imposing some controls”, Mr Samuel said. “There is no justification for price rises of that nature.”
So-called “access charges” to move containers in and out of Australia’s container ports have been soaring for years and will increase further in 2024, posing a further challenge to the Reserve Bank’s task of returning inflation to its 2 per cent to 3 per cent target.
DP World will charge $190.80 for every full container imported into Melbourne from January 1, up 21 per cent, while fees on exported containers will jump 52 per cent to $175.70. Fees will also rise by almost 40 per cent on containers moved in and out of container ports in Sydney and Brisbane.
DP World says the price rises are necessary to pay for investment in equipment and infrastructure, including IT systems.
But on the west coast, fees will rise only 5 per cent to $50.40 for both imported and exported containers. Fremantle Ports – which remains owned by the state government – signed a 10-year agreement with stevedores in 2021 that limits increases in access charges.
Fremantle Ports is understood to have been
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