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PORTS AND CITIES: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE OR BACK TO THE FUTURE Luke Fraser Principal - Juturna Infrastructure Consulting November 2011
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PORTS AND CITIES:
A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVEOR
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Luke FraserPrincipal - Juturna Infrastructure Consulting
November 2011
Briefly…• Freight infrastructure policy/investment advisory
• Practice: how to unlock private capital to invest? Risk, deal structures, pipelines, road, rail, port investments
• Advisory role to Infrastructure Australia esp. road reform
• Author of Mount Isa to Townsville 50-year plan
Today• Historical thinking: ports and their cities
• Change in thinking about ports and cities
• Current thinking: Cities which happen to have ports attached
• National Ports Strategy
• Back to the future: Mount Isa to Townsville Supply Chain
• Going further
Historical thinking• 1788 – WW2?: Ports and their cities
• White settlement – economic infrastructure (ie ports) meant survival = planning precedence
• Ports were our lifeline to the world (port infrastructure was also telco infrastructure until well into-19th century)
• Almost no great inland cities arose despite wool boom, gold etc
Port of Geelong late 1800s
Change
•Australian economy becomes more sophisticated (growing services sector, etc)
•increasing affluence = diminished importance of port in city’s thinking
•Port land becomes desirable for residential, ports equated with noisy, smelly, cause of road congestion, etc
Cole’s Bay Sydney 1930s
Current thinking• ‘Cities which happen to have ports
attached’
• Ports are shifted or development stymied by other civic priorities
• Landside port connections become asphyxiated, contribute to congestion, no priority planning
• Port dies - but city’s trade efficiency and prosperity dies too!
• Public funding becomes harder to obtain (ports versus hospitals)
• Private investors see no regulatory priority given to ports – so they steer clear of investing
Cole’s Bay Sydney 2010
National Ports Strategy• ‘Catch the problem in time’:
create a ‘place for ports’ and a ‘place for freight’ in civic plans
• Advocates long-term port planning for sustainable trade prosperity
• Emphasises hinterland connections in road, rail
• Lays ground for greater private sector investment
• Promotes entrepreneurial behaviour from individual ports and their cities
Port of Melbourne
Back to the future• Mt Isa – Townsville Supply Chain• 1,000 kms, minerals and agriculture,
highly prospective• $8 billion pa port in Queensland’s
third biggest city• No planning attention, no strategic
investment, fragmented supply chain
• Not a gov’t plan: local industry, rail port, community-led and funded
• Final report released end April 2012 – gives forward planning and investment momentum to city and port
Isa rail line
Back to the future• 50-year freight infrastructure
plan permits ‘strategic’ civic planning of the port and freight task in Townsville, increases global investment interest
• As in 19th century: plan allows locals to see importance of $8 billion + pa port precinct
• Federal and State planning proves woeful
• Moral: individual ports and city planning is the future, not higher governments
Going further• Future investment in ports and freight for road, rail will
need to be sourced from private capital
• Global capital is plentiful for the right projects
• It’s not just port privatisation – road and rail improvement and planning must be part of the deal
• Closer than you think –reforms afoot
• Individual port and city entrepreneurialism the key – higher governments cannot pull this off!
