Mr Peter Morris asked the Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business, upon notice, on 2 April 1998:

What are the schedule charge rates for (a) loading on ship and (b) unloading from ship (i) 20 foot and (ii) 40 foot containers by type on offer by (A) P&O and (B) Patrick Stevedores at the port of Brisbane.

Mr Reith (Workplace Relations and Small Business) —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

Charges for stevedoring containers by private companies are commercial in confidence and are the subject of commercial negotiation between the stevedore and its clients. They are not available for publication.

In its Waterline publication, the Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE) uses a provisional figure of $188 per twenty-foot equivalent unit as a national average figure representing container stevedoring charges. The figure is a weighted average for several major Australian ports. The BTCE notes that "stevedoring charges vary between ports but detailed data for individual ports are not publicly available." (Waterline no. 14, footnote to Table 7).

The BTCE also notes that this figure is provisional pending updating of the stevedoring charge figure using detailed survey data.