A new cruise terminal and sharing Garden Island are among suggestions for fixing Sydney Harbour’s chronic lack of space to accommodate the burgeoning cruise industry.
Amid warnings that the city is missing out on as much as $65 million worth of jobs and business, the NSW State Government has called in former Liberal Leader Peter Collins, an officer in the naval reserve, to find a solution.
The problem: modern ships won’t go under the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge to where the NSW government built a new $57 million cruise terminal at White Bay.
And while the Overseas Passenger Terminal has been upgraded at a further cost of $22 million, it still houses only one mega liner a day.
One way around the lack of capacity could be sharing the defence facility at Garden Island. But Royal Australian Navy chiefs are not showing any signs they want to help.
While cruise ships were once allowed to tie up at Garden Island, there hasn’t been a cruise vessel there since 2013, and an upgrade threatens to make it even more difficult.
It is hoped Mr Collins, as a senior naval reserve officer, could, will bring some key contacts and diplomatic leverage to the negotiations.
A new cruise ship industry reference group led by Mr Collins has been given three months to find a way to stop the city loosing out to other ports – and even other countries.
Singapore and Hong Kong both have modern terminals. Shanghai and Beijing also have new ports.
This growth should be great for Australia – the Opera House and bridge make it the first port of call for all foreign ships. But without new facilities, cruise operators like Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian say they can’t step up investment or homeported ships.
“The government is looking at all options but the most obvious one is a shared facility at Garden Island,” Mr Collins said on Friday, after the new moves broke in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
“It’s not a case of bumping the navy out at all.
“The government wants to keep every sailor ship and navy dollar in Sydney and at the same time enable the tourism industry to grow because it’s serious dollars.”
It won’t be easy. NSW Maritime Minister Melinda Pavey and her colleagues have been working on a report for years – with little sign of any progress.
The reference group will report in September.
Why don’t they hot berth the ships, Meaning as one ship leaves another one comes and takes up that berth.
At the moment all ships come in at the early hours of the morning and the berth is empty from early evening till the next morning and in a lot of cases the berth is empty for a couple of days in summer season and in winter the port is utilized even less.
With ships now disembarking it’s passengers faster maybe they could leave port earlier not at 5 or 6pm . Unlike back in the 70s and 80s you could be still waiting to get off the ship nearer to lunch time.
I think it could be better managed.
sydney needs more space for cruise ships
even peninsular town of Tauranga in NZ
moored 2 large ships Ovation and Explorer at same time plus Auckland is cheaper
to refuel so… so stop being complacent
sydney
as above
The cost of drink packages is to high fore the average drinker as one of the two people in a stateroom might only consume two or three drinks each day Maybe two drinks per person could be included in the cost of cruise This would be good for people who like a drink with their meals