The NSW Treasurer will today reveal that privatising the state’s ports has left the people of NSW saddled with a potential liability of between $600 million and $4.3 billion.
Port privatisation contracts, along with boxes of other privatisation deeds, will be tabled in the Parliament today as part of the NSW Labor Government’s commitment to provide transparency to the people of NSW.
The Liberal National government sold off Port Botany and Port Kembla to NSW Ports in 2013. The Port of Newcastle was sold off a year later to a separate buyer.
Under the former government’s ports deal, the state would be liable to compensate NSW Ports if the Port of Newcastle were to develop a competing container terminal.
In a report commissioned by NSW Treasury, preliminary estimates by Deloitte Access Economics suggest that liability to the government could range between $600 million and $4.3 billion in today’s dollars out to the end of the contract in 2063.
Last October, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey wrote to port owners requesting consent to release these contracts.
The public should know the details of these sales for transparency and to understand if they got a good deal.
Documents to be tabled today also outline details of a port commitment deed signed with the Port of Newcastle. This requires the Port of Newcastle to reimburse the state, should the state be required to pay NSW Ports.
IPART is currently working to set what the price of a 1-off payment to the state would be, to enable the Port of Newcastle to extinguish the reimbursement provision should it wish to do so.
IPART’s determination does not affect the Port Commitment Deeds with NSW Ports – the owner of Port Botany and Port Kembla.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey will deliver a Ministerial Statement and table the contracts in Parliament today.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said:
“After more than a decade, the people of NSW are finally seeing what the impact of selling off their assets looks like.
“They shouldn’t have had to wait this long to see these contracts. All this government had to do was ask.
“The public deserves to know exactly what is in the agreements made when public assets were privatised.
“The NSW Labor Government promised to end the secrecy and today we’re delivering on that promise.
“I thank all contractual parties for helping us show the people of NSW the reality of these privatisation deals.”