Mike Gallacher: Resilient Ports

Hello, welcome to another episode of Transforming Asset Management. Today I am at Lollyport City of Gladstone the first day of BISOF Conference twenty twenty six, and I'm joined by Mike, CEO of Ports Australia. Welcome Mike, thank you for joining me today. It's a pleasure, absolute pleasure. We know ports are the heart of our trade. Ninety nine percent of Australia's trade are done through ports. That make the port assets one of the most critical assets. And they are also at the front line of climate risk. Is our port sector ready to combat the climate risk? Yeah, it's a good question. It's a very topical one. It's one that our port engineers, together with those port owners, be they state owned ports or privately owned enterprises, are very much focused on. It's about sharing knowledge across our ports and they are doing that now. Recently we've just released some greenhouse gas guidance documents to our ports in terms of measuring at a consistent level across the country scope three emissions that can be difficult to determine. This gives them greater certainty. Rising sea levels, rising temperatures, these are things that all have impact on our port assets, but we're going further. We're also in dialogue with our Pacific neighbours to help them, who may not have readily at their fingertips access to that same sort of information and advice and guidance. Not only are we looking at it here within Australia, but we're also reaching out to our neighbors across the Pacific to see if we can help them as well. That's great insight Mike, yes I really enjoyed today's presentations like from Pacific Island nations and what about the decarbonization? We had a session today, a very interesting session, talking about decarbonization in port sector, especially with the different, like, the alternative fuels. What's your take on that? That's a really important part of the work that Ports Australia is actually leading on behalf of the entire industry, particularly focused in our dialogue with the federal government. IMO will make some decisions shortly. The federal government, in its approach to maritime emissions, have put discussion papers out. They're engaging with government. Our role is to ensure when government do make decisions, they make realistic ones that can be achieved, but ones that don't punish the Australian economy, ones that don't hamper the efficiency of our supply chains, and ones that understand the uniqueness in the thirty five thousand kilometers of coastline that we have around the country and the supply chains both in terms of imports and containers but then those supply chains vertically integrated in the bulk space in isolated communities around the country. It is a balancing act. We've said that to government, government's listening to us, but it's about ensuring that those many voices around our coast line and our ports and our port communities are all looked at individually because they all have different problems. I sure agree it's a balancing act and I look forward to what the port sector how port sector progress in the coming years. And one final question. So this has been a great conference, and thank you. And what do you, in general, have to say the ports community about the conference and you want to invite them everyone to join next time? Yeah, look it is crucial for us that we work collaboratively. These events, this conference and the conferences we have each year, as well as those technical working groups that we have during the course of the year, gives us an honest opportunity to exchange the good things and bad things that we're experiencing around the country with the port sector to ensure that we're learning from one another. Whilst the ports are different, some of those challenges we can learn continuously from one another. Gladstone has really turned on not only beautiful weather but hospitality. Their facilities here are first class. I have travelled around the country, I have travelled extensively around regional areas of Australia and the facilities here in Gladstone are amongst the best I've ever seen. And I'd say to any organisation or any industry group that was looking at holding a function in a regional part of Australia, if you want certainty, you want to be welcomed and made feel warm and comfortable by the community, the Mayor turned up last night, come to Gladstone. Thank you, Mike. And I resonate with you like ports power the Gladstone City and also ports power the whole region. Thank you for joining us, Mike. Thank you. And thank you for watching all of you, and we'll hope to see you next time.