DP World’s port automation will slow cargoes, increase costs and make container ports less safe

Australian container terminals will become less productive, more costly and less safe under a port automation plan at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane being pursued by Dubai Ports – which controls one-third of Australia’s port infrastructure.

 

In correspondence to the Maritime Union, DP World – which is majority owned by the Dubai Royal Family – has indicated it plans to spend more than $600 million replacing skilled Australian wharfies with automated equipment within the Australian container terminal network it bought from P&O Freight almost 20 years ago.

 

The announcement has been made without fulfilling consultation requirements set out in the Enterprise Agreement signed off on by the company a little over a year ago.

 

The timing, which occurs midway through a highly contested federal election, smacks of an effort by company managers to once again manipulate political processes to deliver industrial outcomes.

 

It also lands at the same fortnight that Patrick Terminals, the one-time adversary of the MUA, signed an historic roll-over agreement on the anniversary of its 1998 war with the Union. The new Patrick agreement builds on the productive outcomes delivered over successive agreements. It increases flexibility and economic certainty whilst maintaining industrial harmony by delivering consistent and sustainable wage increases for Patrick wharfies until the end of 2028. The new agreement with Patrick Terminals was signed without any industrial action or interruption of operations.

 

“DP World hasn’t got the memo. Every time they pick a fight with the MUA they lose.  Dubai Ports wants to drag us and the community back to the era of workplace confrontation and wharfie-bashing while companies like Patrick have abandoned that strategy and now stand to benefit from every shipping contract that DP World loses on the way through,” said the MUA’s National Secretary, Paddy Crumlin.

 

“Dubai Ports has a poor track record in this country of triggering disputes with its workers, jacking up prices for its customers, and mismanaging essential supply chain infrastructure which the community rightly expects to be operated more in the national interest than in the financial interest of the Dubai Royal family,” said Mr Crumlin.

 

Automation not a solution for port productivity

 

Evidence from international container operations in more densely populated and busier ports than Australia’s shows that automated container terminals are not as productive as those being worked by highly skilled, attentive and committed Stevedores. 

 

Automated ports are consistently slower, more costly and less safe even where the overall quantity of container throughput is higher than we see in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. The crucial ‘box rate’ metric is always higher when containers are moved by a team of human workers than by robots.

 

The proposed automation of Dubai Ports’ Australian operation depends on machinery which is adversely affected by heat, rain, insects, radiofrequency interference and software glitches. However, even when operating without issue, automated port machinery is slower to perform routine manoeuvres and complex activities in tight quarters. Worse still, maintenance costs are higher and minor or isolated breakdowns force the total shutdown of entire terminal operations.

 

In a letter to the company’s Australian boss, Nicolaj Noes, Mr Crumlin warned that Dubai Ports cannot afford another major stuff up after the nightmare run it has faced in recent years.

 

Dubai Ports was struck by a nationwide cybersecurity crisis in 2023 when Russian hackers took control of their ports’ computer systems and shut down Australian container terminals for up to three days.

 

“This is not a company with a good track record of managing the security of Australia’s port infrastructure. The risk of another cyber-attack on essential infrastructure grows daily, especially with global geopolitical tensions growing worse with every utterance of the Trump administration. Tossing robotic cranes into the mix under the control of Dubai Ports’ IT managers is not something Australia can risk,” Mr Crumlin said.

 

Dubai corporate behemoth not paying its way in Australia

 

The company, which pays no Australian tax, wants to cut Australian workers’ jobs driving straddle-cranes along the quayline of ports in Brisbane and Melbourne and replace them with robotic cranes that are slower, less accurate, and less safe. It is also trying to automate aspects of its railway interface at the Port Botany terminal, with limited success.

 

Costs associated with the plan, which will hit on both a financial and productivity basis, will be felt by Australian businesses and consumers.

 

The company hiked its landside fees for businesses and customers in 2024 by 52% and has extracted massive profits of between $63 and 96 million per year from its Australian operations, where annual revenue exceeds $825 million. 

 

Massive price hikes last year prompted outrage from business leaders and transport industry peak bodies, who publicly lay the blame for delays and consumer goods inflation at the feet of Dubai Ports’ managers.

 

In January 2024, Paul Zalai from the Freight & Trade Alliance said about DP World:

 

"The magnitude of the increases are staggering, and in what is a real kick in the guts, they inexplicably have targeted Australian exporters with the largest increase"

 

“Australian wharfies work under modern and flexible enterprise arrangements agreed between them and their employers, and that have continually delivered increased productivity for terminal operators. They are some of the most productive and flexible workers in the Australian economy,” Crumlin said.

 

“With 99% of our imports coming by sea, almost every consumer good you can imagine is dependent on containerised freight, all of which is unloaded and transported within our ports by members of the MUA working around the clock, in all weather. DP World know that Australian wharfies are faster, safer and more consistent in this highly skilled work than any robot, so this plan is not about productivity it's about politics,” Mr Crumlin added.

 

ENDS.