The country’s largest peak body for Australia’s $420 billion retail sector, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) is maintaining a watching brief on the dual crisis impacting DP World’s cargo shipping terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, and ongoing issues in the Red Sea.
The DP World terminals industrial action continues to be a pain point for retailers around the country in 2024 and unfortunately, there is no end point in sight.
Whilst supply chain and transport concerns have eased over the past year with the difficulties of the pandemic, pressure remains. We are hopeful industrial action can be swiftly resolved and in the meantime will be working hard to ensure stores are stocked and the new year of trading is a positive experience for customers.
As there are only a small number of stevedore operators at Australian ports, this is affecting retail across the board, and in many categories. Last week alone there were the following planned stoppages:
- 17 in Brisbane
- 21 in Sydney
- 29 in Melbourne
- 19 in Freemantle
The stoppages impacted vessel unloading and causing vessel bunching which then delayed vessels returning to origin to load. We are seeing 1-2 week’s delays in loading returning vessels.
This is likely to cause delays to stocks, rather than empty shelves or noticeable stock shortages. It also impacts on costs and emissions.
Yesterday, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) agreed to withdraw most of the planned action, including daily eight-hour quayside stoppages, until Sunday and a 24-hour ban on loading and unloading ground transport that was set to start at 6 am Monday.
Workers will now limit their daily stoppages to two hours and will proceed with a 24-hour truck and train ban on Friday.
While we have done our best to bring together this information, we suggest that members also conduct their own research about how this industrial action could impact their business.
With the recent cyber incident, disruptions in the Red Sea and ongoing challenges due to natural disasters highlights the sensitivities of our supply chain and the need for urgent government investment in supply chain resilience. This is an ongoing area of advocacy for the Australian Retailers Association and will form a key part of our pre-budget submission.
Retail is a 52-week a year operation and so any significant disruption to port operations is potentially harmful.
