Why `middleman' pilotage doesn't work 08 March 2007 | 12:33PM
Sir,
I was amused by Perry Sutton's response (Lloyd's List DCN, March 1) to my letter.
As if on cue, Mr Sutton was quick off the mark when he got the whiff that things were going awry in Sydney.
I can understand his motivation.
After all, it was those damn Sydney pilots who deprived him of that lucrative Sydney pilotage contract he held for three years.
I read his letter as an attempt to ingratiate himself to the Sydney Ports Corp chief executive (Greg Martin) while pouring scorn on those damn pilots.
Excuse my cynicism, but I wonder if he senses another bite at the
cherry!
That might be possible but I'm sure a “once bitten” bureaucracy will want a few questions answered first.
For example, it might refer to the public record and point out that the revenue during the time Mr Sutton ran the Sydney pilot service was $6.3m.
It might also point to the fact that the cost of running the service, based on the submission made by the pilots when they took it over, was $3m.
And I'm sure it would point out that the price of pilotage was 14% more expensive in 1992, when Mr Sutton was running the service, than it was in 2001 when it was being run by the pilots.
As Mr Sutton likes to make a big deal of looking after his customer – the shipowner – I'm sure the bureaucracy will ask for evidence that he reimbursed all of his customers from the profits he made from Sydney (as opposed to the pilots who discounted up front) before seriously considering to, once again, award the Sydney contract to him.
Yes, I was amused because I keep in very close contact with my colleagues in Sydney, and ironically, Mr Sutton's letter has unwittingly and subtly ended up supporting the pilots in their present stoush with SPC.
But, make no mistake; the past is the past and we have all learned from it.
The SPC and the pilots are at one in the view that pilotage in the hands of a middleman does not serve the best interests of the port or its customers.
Mr Sutton has missed the underlying reason for the present troubles in Sydney.
SPC and NSW Maritime have convinced ports minister Joe Tripodi that it is okay to bring in a non-resident with unrecognised qualifications and force the qualified, long serving pilots in the port to agree to fast-track his training as a pilot.
Mr Sutton can get as excited as he likes.
My previous letter refers to the present and Mr Sutton is so far removed from port pilotage in the present, as to render his comments a source of great mirth for many of his pilotage comrades.
Andrew Lusher,
Retired Sydney pilot,
Sydney
* Correspondence on this subject is now closed. — Editor.
