I don't listen to election 'promises' more than anyone else, but I came upon this one in a round about way. Apparently, Anthony Albanese has promised to add 12 ships to our fleet to secure supplies to our nation if he is elected.

Stuart Ballantyne, Chairman of the Sea Transport Group, says that a nation of our size, needs around 50 overseas vessels and 150 coastal ships. We have 11 coastal ships.

Although our 60,000 kms of coastline puts us in the top seven of the world in coastline lengths, we have the smallest shipping fleet per unit of coastline in the world.

Obviously, Dr. Ballantyne is keen on what he calls the "Blue Highway''; he deplores that authorities are "myopically focused on road and rail" - they have ignored coastal shipping despite federal and state government ‘reviews’ over the last four decades "urging the opposite". He refers to the recent flooding that cut off the SA-WA railway line causing "huge logistics problems" that could have been alleviated by shipping, if we had it. The same goes for Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin railway and road.

The major logistics groups have been scrambling for solutions asking, ‘Do we have any ships available?’ No.

In Europe, the "‘Motorway of the Sea'’" program removed "60 percent of truck traffic off the coastal highways within the first two years." Ballantyne believes that a similar program here could "easily reduce by 50 per cent the appalling road deaths (1,300 p.a.), serious road accidents (18,000 p.a.)". road emissions pollution, road congestion, and road maintenance. The costs, including road maintenance, pollution etc amount to "$50 billion."

More ports would be needed. Which could be a problem given all the marine parks, and fish "needing" protection and other "nonsense" making development difficult for all but large, well heeled companies.

In 2019, Bill Shorten found it disgraceful that we had only 14 flagged ships. Scott Morrison dismissed any change as an attempt to protect union jobs.

1973 I was on my first cruise from Sydney to the reef. I met a couple cruising in the Whitsundays, & we traveled in company for a while. He was a radio operator on coastal shipping, & they would cruise in the long leave they had even then.

One day he was very glum. When asked he said he had just lost his job, & their lifestyle. Not immediately but with in a couple of years. He said the fool union had just managed to get a 6 month on/6 month off award. He was smart enough to know that was the end of small coastal shipping. He knew that only the big bulk freighters were profitable enough to afford the cost, & ships like he crewed would disappear, & they did.

Anthony Albanese has promised to add 12 ships to our fleet to secure supplies to our nation if he is elected.
ttbn,
Albanese is obviously forgetting that his maritime union friends are the ones responsible for the near extinction of Australian shipping.

Well put Indi,

The MWU is a classic case of unions killing business.

"Anthony Albanese has promised to add 12 ships to our fleet"

If that comes to pass will it then be argued for years where they will be built?

I put this in the elections section because it’s an election issue ; it's not about unions or who supposedly ruined the industry (30 years ago we had 100 coastal freighters operating). The situation is up there with our lack of fuel reserves, which after nearly decade in power, the Coalition has done nothing about. And it's not about ship building. That’s up to the owners. We need ships that can be commandeered during emergencies such as the recent flooding when road and rail is cut off.

So, as an election issue, Labor has an idea, the Coalition hasn't. Australia is not prepared for anything to go wrong.

I'm reminded of Donald Horne's Lucky Country. We still have the same sorts useless politicians running the country. But the luck that compensates for them is running out.

For an election issue shouldn't we focus on those members in the community who keep the community going ? Shipping not only bings us the goods we need, it also provides or rather should provide employment for this Nation & not for the Nations which exploit cheap labour.
Surely Australia isn't that far down the drain already that this trend can't be reversed ?
I don't care what anyone thinks but we do need a sort of National Service/Gap year service to train our young with a superior mentality to the one of their Baby Boomer parents.
Without a healthy mentality you get what we've been getting for the past five decades. Don't you think it's time to wake up ?

I have not heard of any study that claims that shipping is more
efficient than rail in moving goods around the country.
Flooding problems can be managed to an extent but then the rest of the
time between floods would I think more than make up for the flood loss.
Of course for international shipping how do we overcome the economic
competition of Philipino crews.
With rail the infrastructure is already in place.
Electrification would be a really big cost but in the long term necessary.
The reason it is necessary is the same as electric cars are necessary.
Shipping faces the same problem. Sail ahoy !

Bazz,
You can't do without international trade & that's where shipping comes in. As far as domestic movement of cargo goes, I'm inclined to think that we rely too heavily on road transport. I agree that rail is the most efficient method for bulk & long distance. Ship building yards should have other industries linked which require heavy duty metal construction. Australian manufacturing must look at multitasking & reducing artificial overheads such as overpaid CEO's & shareholders etc & only then can costs be reduced & manufacturing be made viable.
The economy would reward us for it !

Just what are these ships going to do? What are they going to carry to where?

If it is to carry containers from capital cities to capital cities, existing international shipping can do it much more efficiently on their current passages unloading in coming freight.

We don't have any ports for minor shipping in most places. Queensland has a few specialist ports for export loading of sugar & coal, but most of these have no facility to handle general cargo. Places like Weipa load bauxite, & Gladstone can unload it from 70,000 tonners, but general; shipping not so much.

NSW has only 3 all weather ports, & 2 of those are basically coal loading ports, & not much else. The rest are fair weather ports only, & then not for much bigger than a trawler.

The rest of oz is much the same. The cost of loading labor alone would destroy any economic advantage.This is simply a Labor effort to shore up union support, at huge cost to the rest of us if actually built.

existing international shipping can do it much more efficiently on their current passages unloading in coming freight.
Hasbeen,
Very good point. Australia simply can't compete with the wage levels that are required here to make industry get back on its feet. However, ship building & ship maintenance for the domestic maritime industry should be retained here unless the 'economic experts' think we can let the unemployment benefits snowball indefinitely.
The EPA requires new, more sensible blood in its ranks to stop stifling the economy in Australia.

One big problem with that. The government cannot commandeer foreign flagged ships in a emergency.

Australian coastal shipping.
Load onto a rail truck, send to port, unload into a ship, ship sails, reaches port, unloads into a rail truck, goes to destination.
Substitute road truck for rail, same scenario.

Load your goods into a rail or road truck and send to destination; saves one loading and unloading and probably saves time and money.

.... unloads into a rail truck, goes to destination.
Is Mise,
My philosophy also ! Bureaucracy appears to have ample hindsight experts but sparingly few with foresight.
Same as the Bradfield scheme, hardly anyone has the imagination to see the benefits to society & environment for that. Lake Eyre could be to Australia what the Great Lakes are to the US or many of the other great inland seas all over the World. Just a little channel to Spencer Gulf & presto, 'ere goes ! The shipyards of Australia could be engaged in making all metal infrastructure required & working in with the rail, truck haulage could be reduced along with the costs for same.
All that is needed is the patience to wait for the insane profits !

I have mentioned before Is Mise that we have very few ports capable of taking any ship big enough to carrying even a few trucks or rail cars. The entrances are just too shallow & not capable of being made able at less than billions of dollars each.

In the states rail carries thousands of complete semis from one side of the country to the other, evidently it is too expensive to use rail, with our government run expensive rail.

Any idea of the cost to build roll on roll off facilities for road or rail in all the little ports presently not able to take even small ships. Even those that once served a coastal trade in very small ships like Catherine Hill Bay, Coffs Harbor, Ballina & a few others have seen their jetties reduced beyond use by shipping

This is as silly as Queensland government spending billions of our money digging a rail tunnel under the Brisbane river, to run passenger trains, carrying north shore bureaucrats to their city offices. It will cost hundreds of millions in tax payer subsidies to use the tunnel for nothing but railway union jobs. Why build infrastructure which will never earn it's keep, & is of very doubtful use?

Hasbeen,
There are some good books on the ‘60 Milers’ that used to ply our coasts and they are replete with tales of near disaster getting into and out of our coastal ports.
The sand bars can build up in a few hours and I well remember standing on the bowsprit of a 40 foot yacht leaving Evan’s Head and looking down on the liquid sand as we crossed the bar.
It was common for trawlers to wait or time their arrival to come in at high tide.
Australian coastal shipping died in the face of cheaper transport the sugar boats lasted the longest as they could load raw sugar at the mills and deliver to waterside refineries such as CSR’s facility on Sydney Harbour.

The biggest handicap to progress here is the mentality of many people who are unable to grasp the value of planning ahead, preferring instant profit instead !

Individual, I knew a bloke who was one of the hundred wharf labourers called in to load the coastal sugar ships when they called in to Urangan, Hervey Bay when the occasional ship appeared.

They loaded sugar in sugar bags, [hence the name], carried on their shoulder, up a gang plank. They did not even have a crane suitable for loading by the pallet. Can you imagine the cost involved today, when wharfies are paid a kings ransom, rather than a pittance.

Some things are past their use by date. Somewhere between the wars they stopped loading Maryborough sugar onto horse drawn carts to take it to the Urangan pier, & built a rail line. Today that rail line is redundant. They conveyor belts bulk load train cars, which take it Bundaberg, where a large terminal loads 45,000 toners in hours rather than days to load a 4,500 tonner.

When things are past their use by date, it is time to let them go.

When things are past their use by date, it is time to let them go.
Hasbeen,
yes, particularly the non-performing 'experts' & consultants with not a moment of foresight !

as for; cost involved today, when wharfies are paid a kings ransom, rather than a pittance.
menial tasks that are too costly can be performed by National Service which would bring back physical fitness levels that were out-done by obesity !

Unions once again have destroyed 1000s of jobs.

shadowminister,
Unworkable Leftist ideology has & still is costing ten times more jobs.

Automated loading and piloting technology has the potential to restore coastal shipping.

But not the potential to create ports.

CM

There is a small group of moaners here and in the general community that wants Australia to falter. No matter what anyone says, they rubbish it. Describing them as a Fifth Column makes them sound too grand; rats is more fitting.

I saw something last night about how Hollywood used to glorify the US marines, and paint the Chinese/North Koreans/terrorists and all the usual enemies as evil. Now it's the other way around. China is a big customer for Hollywood movies, and the picture moguls like the money, so they turn on their own; even to changing a script at the last minute to replace a Chinese army invading America with a North Korean one. Apparently the Koreans are not such good customers of Hollywood.

Is Mise and Co. are doing something similar on a micro scale. The are not likely to benefit from it, though. We all look the same to the Chinese.

ttbn,
Here’s another chance for you to shew us all how you would handle the situation.
What’s your solution to the double handling problem and consequent delays and the lack of suitable ports?
Not all the NSW ports, such as they are, have a rail line to them; there’s more infrastructure needed.

Get a life.

ttbn,
You can do better than that, shew us all the solution, surely you have one; we might disagree with it but we won’t laugh.

shew us all how you would handle the situation.
Is Mise,
Start with freezing Public Service salaries & deduct a 1% infrastructure levy from everyone.
Impose a Public Service salary ceiling of 500,000/year.
Start a Gap year National Service for all unemployed aged 18-21.
That'd be a good start to start building infrastructure for continued employment.

individual,
Big order; there are only 5 deep water ports on the NSW coast and four of them are in the 185 kms between Newcastle and Wollongong plus Jervis Bay well south.
The rest of the ‘Ports’, so called, are mainly rivers and can only take small ships.

I had experience of visiting NSW ports in a square rigger that only drew 10 fett and we were very restricted as to which ports we could safely enter.

Dredging ports isn’t going to make many jobs as the same couple of dredges could move from port to port or, if the company that won the contracts, kept dreadges in each port, then there need only be a couple of crews who’d move to each new job..

Anyway you look at it coastal shipping has a very limited future.

No amount of wage saving and cost cutting will do away with the lost time caused by double handling.
For example, a machine that could be carried on a truck , 2 kilometres from the factory to the wharf, could be in Melbourne, by the truck before the ship cleared port

Is Mise,
One of hurdles with Australian infrastructure deficiency is the deficient infrastructure thinking. If natural conditions are not suitable, make them suitable. No need to ruin the environment, enhance it.
If shipping is not a viable option make it rail because long haulage trucking is also not viable.
Create infrastructure not wait for it to magically appear to enable economic & social stability.
Aim to provide for all the community not just please a few useless megalomaniacs !
Engage people to make them appreciate what they get for what they put in an effort !
Most of all, move away from that insane entitlement mentality !

Is Mise- Good point on the shallow 10' ports- deserves more research. Kudos