All At Sea With Captain Tripodi

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday December 11, 2008

IT'S RARE to see real innovation in public policy, but we felt its touch this week. The Ports Minister, Joe Tripodi, announced his solution to the problem of under-capacity at the port of Newcastle: ships on their way to the port to pick up coal will be monitored using satellites, and told to slow down if there's a queue. By this simple means the long-running problem of huge numbers of vessels waiting off the coast will be removed.

The thing has a certain genius to it, and we wonder if the same approach might be applied elsewhere. Cars approaching the city of a morning could be told to slow down to reduce congestion on the F3 and the M5. Ambulances bearing patients towards overcrowded hospitals might be ordered to circle the block until the hospital staff had time to see them.

We joke, of course, and maybe we shouldn't, given the seriousness of the problem at Newcastle and the absurdity of the proposed "solution". Yet it's difficult to know how else to respond to an action so emblematic of this Government's chronic inability to plan or act in the state's interests.

Newcastle port has been a bottleneck for the state's coal exports for years. Both the loaders and the railways servicing them have often been woefully inadequate. The number of parties involved in the problem has made its resolution beyond the talents of the Government. But earlier this year Mr Tripodi wisely appointed the former premier Nick Greiner to come up with a solution, and against most expectations he did, persuading all those involved to accept a reform package.

The proposal was given to Mr Tripodi, who sat on it for several months and then rejected it on the grounds it might disadvantage future investors. He has continued to hold this position even after coal producers came back to him with assurances that the new arrangements would look after the interests of newcomers.

Mr Tripodi's position might have something to do with the fact the Government is auctioning some 12 coal exploration licences, and hopes to gain badly needed revenue from this in the current financial year. A theory widely held in the industry is that, in these circumstances, the Government is reluctant to do anything that might be seen by potential purchasers, rightly or wrongly, to favour existing coal companies at the expense of future ones.

In the meantime, the problems at Newcastle continue, and the Government seems to have no idea how to solve them. Even worse, the industry faces the spectre of the minister trying to micro-manage its supply chain issues using powers he was recently given by Parliament.

That's no laughing matter.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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