WA’s transport union boss has warned the state needs to be wary about increasing capacity in its South West ports earlier than required, despite claiming it needs a strategy for its harbours.
Transport Workers Union (TWU) WA state secretary Tim Dawson said the issue needed to be resolved, but if port capacity was increased sooner than needed, Western Australians would be impacted.
Following the release of Westport Taskforce’s first report What We Have Found So Far involving Fremantle, Kwinana and Bunbury ports on Wednesday, Mr Dawson said the cost of goods and services would increase if a new port was built before it was needed.
“If we build a port before we need to build a port and the cost goes up because of the investment that was needed to be returned to whoever builds that port, whether it be government, whether it be a private enterprise, then the price to get them containers off the wharf will increase dramatically,” Mr Dawson said.
He said the cost would be passed onto Western Australians.
“Everything that we do in our daily lives will go up. Food, the clothes on their backs, the price will go up,” Mr Dawson said.
However, he said the port strategy for the future “needs to be solved”, but previous investigations into growth and port capacity had been overestimated.
“I’ve seen many reports over the last 20 years that have said that the Fremantle port will grow substantially higher than what reality has been in long term movements,” Mr Dawson said.
“In 2004 they said that we would need a new port by 2015, yet the port is currently at 50 per cent capacity.”
He claimed that the reports needed to be taken “with a grain of salt”, stating that projections had been inaccurate, estimating high levels of growth but Fremantle’s port was currently at 50 per cent capacity.
Westport Taskforce revealed in its report that WA could handle growth for the next 50 to 100 years if Kwinana, Bunbury and Fremantle ports were properly developed.
The report presented eight options for future development including de-industrialising Fremantle and removing container trade to Bunbury or Kwinana; keeping Fremantle as the only container port; or Fremantle sharing container trade with either Bunbury or Kwinana.
An option for containers to be shared between all three ports was not presented.
The report revealed container trade was forecast to grow 1.5 times as fast as general cargo which included large equipment, live export and scrap metal over 50-year trade projections.
It was also expected to grow 10 times as fast bulk goods that included ore and grain.
The report is now available for public consultation.
Westport Taskforce chair Nicole Lockwood said there was still capacity to “grow Fremantle”.
She said the transport network was key to ensure low costs and future job opportunities.
“The important part to that equation though is unlocking the road and rail connections in,” Ms Lockwood said.
“We need to make sure that the goods that we need every day, can get to us in an efficient way to make sure that they are affordable but it’s also about planning for the future and ensuring that we’ve got the corridors in place to unlock jobs.”
Ms Lockwood said that a number of transport options had been presented but Roe 8 would not be returning.
“The government’s taken that one off the table,” Ms Lockwood said.
