Terminals Are Soundly Operated

By Kevin Borg, Chairman, CANEGROWERS Mackay

Queensland CANEGROWERS has been calling on Sugar Terminals Limited (STL) to listen to their grower shareholders, encouraging them strongly to step out of the city and into a regional growing area to hold its Annual General Meeting.

This is a fair and reasonable call: Bundaberg isn’t so far from Brisbane. The Burdekin is a stone’s throw from Townsville. Mackay has many flights in from Brisbane every day. We’d welcome the regional venue.

At the time of writing, a date and venue had not been set for the STL AGM, but I’ll take the wager that it stays firmly in Brisbane, because the board is hesitant to answer growers on why industry assets like our sugar ports may move into a more privatised model of operation, insourced to STL.

Until now, I would say the sugar industry has operated on an open and democratic system, and has established a network of ports that allow for our industry to control the flow of sugar to market- to hold it in storage in times of low prices, to let it be exported in prosperous times.

Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL) stands at the heart of that arrangement. It’s a not-for-profit with growers as members, with an industry ownership structure that listens to industry and its members, and at most times implements systems that enhance our industry.

It has done an outstanding job of operating our sugar terminals for many years, delivering 7.2 million tonnes in the 22-23 FY - an increase on the last financial year.

STL is a listed company, and so is duty bound to maximise profits for shareholder benefit. And not all of those have a stake in the sugar industry, as set out in STL’s constitution.

As a listed company, STL operates under a constitution, which clearly states shares are for Active Growers, with a current cane supply contract. It also states that if they become Inactive Growers they must “dispose of all their G Class shares as soon as practicable.” Unfortunately, this is not being enforced. STL must not bow to the needs of unconstitutional shareholders. Constitutional shareholders must be heard on the subject of port operation.

Some will say, what does it matter if the badge on terminal staff’s shirt changes? But the issue is far bigger. It is about long-term transparency, and the two-party approach to running terminals was enshrined in the establishment of our industry’s Code of Conduct. A vitally important tool that protects growers and the supply chain from monopoly behaviour in an environment of increasing foreign ownership of sugar industry companies.

If you don’t need a sugar specialist to handle your sugar, then what are the other commodities in which they need to specialise. To what extent do these industry assets slip away into the whim and realm of the demands of other commodities.

North Queensland Bulk Ports was delighted to announce in recent weeks that the port, riding on the back of sugar, had had a record year. That sugar throughput was at a 15-year record at 102,000t of raw sugar. That throughput is testimony to the excellent work of QSL as terminal operators here in Mackay - and along the Queensland seaboard.

Having a terminal owner (STL) AND a terminal operator QSL creates a model of checks and balances, of transparency. To lose this is to see a monopoly gained on what, for our industry, is a chokepoint asset.

‍

QSL are known for efficiently delivering Queensland‘s sugar exports at terminals along the seaboard. Picture: contributed

‍