The NSW Government currently has legislative responsibility for the Port of Newcastle, which is operated by private companies under Port Waratah Coal Services.

 

More than 70 ships are now waiting to be loaded off Newcastle.

 

NSW Premier Morris Iemma yesterday pointed the finger at the practices of the private companies that own the coal loaders.

 

“The advice I've got is that it is not a capacity issue about the port, it's an issue about the loading facilities and the practices of private companies," he told reporters.

 

But Coal & Allied chairman Chris Renwick said while the coal industry and Japanese customers own PWCS, it has been operated largely independently.

 

“As part of its lease conditions from the NSW Government, the facility has carried out its role as an open access port and has tried to deliver everything to everybody,” he said last week.

 

Yesterday, Coal & Allied announced 250 job losses and a 20% cut in production, due to reduced port and rail allocations.

 

A number of NSW coal mining companies, including Yancoal’s Austar Coal Mine, have blamed congestion at Newcastle port and rail facilities for production cuts, job losses and lowered financial results.

 

Prime Minister John Howard has suggested that a federal takeover of ports may be necessary if the situation continues, and said yesterday he would meet with Premier Iemma to discuss how to deal with the ongoing issue.

 

“Let's put aside for a moment who's to blame. Let's try and see if there's something that the two governments together can achieve in order to fix the problem, recognising that some part of the problem may not be capable of being fixed immediately because there are private interests involved,” Howard told 2UE Radio.

 

Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile said yesterday that Labor’s claims that the coal port bottlenecks were caused because coal railways had not caught up with port capacity were ridiculous.

 

“As Coal & Allied have clearly outlined … the opposite is true,” Vaile said.

 

“Ships are queuing in droves off our ports because state governments have for years used those ports as cash cows – milking dividends without reinvesting in new infrastructure,” Vaile said.

 

The Australian Rail Track Corporation also defended its position yesterday, saying rail infrastructure is not the driver of the reduction in export coal from Newcastle.

 

“The rail infrastructure has, at this point in time, sufficient pathing capability to carry in excess of 120 million tonnes between Whittingham and Port Waratah, after allowing for maintenance of the railway line and other traffic,” ARTC chief executive David Marchant said.