Following on from yesterday’s NNF on this development , the CBFCA welcomes this action by the ACCC.

CBFCA directors and management, as previously reported to members, have had meetings and ongoing dealings with ACCC representatives on the issue of forced land based processes and charges over the past 2 years.

The CBFCA contributed to specific content in relation to ACCC’s 2017-2018 Stevedore Monitoring Report, the results of which were first publicly covered at the CBFCA’s 2018 Annual Conference.

The CBFCA has been addressing these issues at a national level with the ACCC and at a state level with respective State Governments.

This process involves a strategic approach via CBFCA representation on relevant industry committees, the ongoing provision of evidence of any detection of anti competitive business practices that have a detrimental effect our members and the engagement of industry expert legal support from the likes of Andrew Hudson, partner at Rigby Cooke, to assist with the CBFCA’s dealings with respective State Governments in the areas of port based access and terminal charges.

It is important to note with this recent development that the ACCC has been able to obtain appropriate leverage against what is now formally recognised as unfair contracts, under Australian Consumer Law (“ACL”).

These “contracts” are terms that have been forced on domestic industry operators who have had to accept them in order to gain access to port facilities and have been “accepted” with any rights to user, who is in fact a paying “customer”.

This now opens the door for respective State Governments to instruct their individual consumer protection agencies to review individual port and land based charges that are unique to each stevedore terminal in each port, whilst separately continuing to assess action against the infrastructure levy impost per full container that has been out of control and which will now require at least more notice and justification for any increases.

The ball now lies squarely at each respective State Government to act to pursue to ultimately see the abolishment of the infrastructure levy surcharge at each effected port.

Victoria has made some progress in this regard, through the bringing forward of the Port Access and Charges review for Port Melbourne, with Andrew Hudson and our Chairman already having progressed meetings and a clear position stated on behalf of members.

The NSW and Queensland State Governments have so far failed to act in any effective manner that deals with these issues.

Not all of the CBFCA’s work and progress in these areas will be announced in the industry media, as that is not always appropriate.

It is important to note that no one individual organisation can claim credit for this current development and there is still a long way to go with this battle, that the CBFCA is committed to, not just to members, but also in the interests of the wider Australian based logistics industry as a whole.