ABU DHABI: The NSW Ports consortium, led by IFM Investors, and also comprising Australian Super, QSuper, Cbus, HESTA, HOSTPLUS and Tawreed Investments Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, took ownership of Port Botany and Port Kembla in April 2013.
It paid a premium price for Port Botany being protected against competition from Newcastle port. In return, the NSW government agreed to pay this consortium more than $100 per container for throughput at Newcastle port in excess of 30,000 per year.
The Newcastle fee is economically unjustified. Should this anti-competitive fee be removed – secrecy prevents it from being examined for lawfulness and enforceability – the NSW government has no means for paying NSW Ports.
This fee is a job destroyer by preventing competition for Port Botany and denying northern NSW access to a container terminal on competitive terms.
Well might Stephen Anthony, chief economist of Industry Super, claim that “we need strong economic leadership to overcome shallow, short-term thinking emphasising speculation on financial assets and real estate” (“Time to counter short-term investment approach”, AFR, September 21) because the biggest single investment by Australia’s biggest industry super funds demonstrates otherwise.
