There are few things NSS Chairman Don Smithwick has not seen on the waterfront.
The Chair of the Northern Stevedoring Board started in the business in 1963 with a company called Darling Island Stevedoring and Lighteridge which at that time was the largest in the southern hemisphere.
His next career step was with the first container terminal operator in Australia based in Sydney called Seatainer Terminals Limited where he served as labour manager.
The company was one of 16 operating in Sydney at the time and had its own wool dock at number 19 Pyrmont Bridge. There were 7000 waterside workers registered at the Port of Sydney alone at the time.
It was a time of change through all facets of the economy, society and workplace and was felt on the waterfront said Mr Smithwick.
“I think my first day in 1963, they took me around and they were loading bales of wool manually,” he said. “Then in 1970, a lot of the product and obviously over time a lot more product went into containers. It was the best way to go, it was more efficient.
“When I first started in 1963, it was called ‘Stevedoring and Lighteridge’. The ‘lighteridge’ was because we didn’t have enough berths in the Port of Sydney, the ships were discharged out in our middle harbour onto barges that they called ‘Lighters’.
“Hence the terminology is less and less reference to Stevedoring. Generally, it’s just referred to as general cargo handling.”
When asked to lead the NSS board he said he looked for good leadership in the business.
“It’s (Port of Townsville) a completely different, in my view anyway, a completely different environment from the capital city ports.
“The workforce in general relate more closely to the company, more so than the major capital city ports where it tends to be more, ‘I work for the union’ sort of approach.
“It’s important that you get the right sort of team and I’m quite confident in the team that we do have in the port at the moment. It’s not to say we haven’t undergone changes in management, we’ve had done that.
“People have left and moved on and gone onto other roles, but importantly the person’s got to reside, (and) the general manager has got to reside in port.”
Mr Smithwick has always been at the forefront of change on the waterfront and in 1996 joined Patrick Corporation helping then re-organise operations over the 20 ports it had around the country.
Mr Smithwick continues working in the industry and is now consulting to Qube which is a part owner of NSS.
He joined Qube in 2006 after Toll bought Patrick.
Qube is Australia’s largest integrated provider of import and export logistics services with a market capitalisation of around $5 billion.
Qube operates in over 200 locations across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia with a workforce of more than 10,000 employees.