Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

The reality is, of course, that it is very important for Australia to have a smoothly working port system. The BTRE, the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics, is about to release a report in which it forecasts that the volume of non-container trade to pass through our ports in Australia will grow from 0.6 billion tonnes this year to 1.4 billion tonnes in 20 years time. A big proportion of that will be going through ports like Gladstone. In addition, it is forecast that there will be an even bigger increase, a 5.4 per cent per annum increase, over the next 20 years in the movement of containers, from 5.2 million 20-foot equivalent unit containers this year to 14.9 million TEUs in 2024—virtually a threefold increase.

When you think back to 1996, the rate of moving these containers across the port was stuck on 14, 15 or 16 containers an hour. In fact, when the Labor Party were last in office they told us that it was physically impossible to move them at a faster rate than 17 containers an hour—that was the absolute maximum rate that could be reached. Of course, we are now well over 27 containers an hour and doing very much better.

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