Prior to 2002, the ACCC had a role to assess price notifications from Adsteam Marine Ltd, a harbour towage operator whose services were declared under the Prices Surveillance Act 1983 (since repealed and replaced with Part VIIA of the Trade Practices Act 1974, known as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 ('the Act') from 1 January 2011).
Adsteam was required to notify the ACCC of any proposed price increases in its harbour towage services at major Australian ports and seek the ACCC’s approval of those price increases.
In February 2002, the ACCC assessed and did not accept price increases notified by Adsteam. Documents in relation to Adsteam’s notification, including the ACCC’s Statement of Reasons, are available by clicking on the link below.
The declaration of Adsteam’s services expired in September 2002. As such, Adsteam is no longer required to notify the ACCC of proposed price increases and the ACCC no longer has a direct prices surveillance role in harbour towage services.
In 2002, the Productivity Commission (PC) conducted an inquiry into the regulation of harbour towage services. The report was released by the Government in March 2003 and is available on the PC’s website. Among the report’s recommendations, the PC recommended that the declaration of harbour towage services should not be renewed upon expiry. The Government responded to the PC report in March 2003 and accepted the recommendations.
The ACCC also conducted an inquiry into harbour towage declaration. Its inquiry report was released in December 1995. See: Harbour towage declaration publication.
On 30 January 2002, Adsteam Marine Ltd notified the ACCC of its intention to increase prices at the ports of Brisbane, Port Botany, Port Jackson, Melbourne and Adelaide.
