Figures from Australia's Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE) set the scene for this article. Total container throughput for the five mainland box ports - Adelaide, Brisbane, Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney/Port Botany -was 2.11 million TEU for July-December 2003, compared with 1.92 million TEU for January-June 2003 and 1.99 million TEU for July-December 2002. This represented an increase of 10.4% from the previous half-year, and an increase of 6.3% over July-December 2002. Over the full year, five-port total container traffic increased by 9.4% from 2002, to 4.03 million TEU - inarguable evidence of the growth that is pressuring major ports. In the waterfront reliability section of the BTRE's latest Waterline report, a picture of a rather stressed industry emerged. The largest single source of ship waiting time in the third quarter of 2003 was the category of late ship arrival, which accounted for 27% of the total. Stevedoring finished late accounted for 25% of total waiting time, and awaiting labour was related to a further 15%. In the fourth quarter of 2003, late ship arrival grew to 29%, awaiting labour increased to 23%, while stevedoring finished late more than halved to 12% of total waiting time.
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