AMD Chartered Accountants, Bunbury, Geraldton, Mandurah, Accountants House, Western Australia

Client Focus

Keeping things shipshape at the Bunbury Port

The crew on board Bunbury Port Authority's Finance Department:
Denise Depiazzi, Miranda Lydon, John Barratt, Graham Coves,
Laura Beach and Carol McKenzie. Kathryn Cowley-Dean absent.

For more than a century the Bunbury Port, which is the largest alumina exporting port in the world, has been central to the prosperity of Bunbury and the South West region.

The Bunbury Port Authority handles an estimated $6 billion worth of exports and imports every year – the majority of which is alumina destined to be smelted into aluminium around the world.

Bunbury Port is continuing to break tonnage records, with an amount of 13.9 million tonnes of goods passing through the port last financial year.

In this financial year, trade figures are up by 5% and the number of visiting commercial vessels up by 9%.

As the workload increases, so does the workforce and recent recruitments have taken the Bunbury Port Authority’s payroll to 29.

The Bunbury Port Authority’s Finance Department is headed by John Barratt, a veteran of 22 years with the Bunbury Port Authority. He leads a team of six employees who provide financial and administration support covering all the port’s activities relating to the 391 commercial vessels and nine cruise ships which visited in the past financial year.

AMD Chartered Accountants have been a vital part of the Bunbury Port Authority’s financial administration for about 20 years, beginning their services soon after John joined the Port.

AMD Partner Tim Partridge conducts internal audits to assess the Port’s financial controls and operational systems.

Tim’s audit services cover IT, HR, disaster recovery plans and the security of information as well as financial management.

AMD Partner Stuart Fricker is responsible for the Port’s taxation, providing income tax advice and auditing FBT and GST figures to ensure the Port complies with tax laws.

“The Auditor General conducts an extensive end of year audit using AMD’s internal audit information to assess the adequacy of controls of the Port’s operations,” John said.

As a State Government Trading Enterprise, the Port is required to prepare a company tax return which is assessed by the Australian Taxation Office and taxation payments go to the State Government.

Bunbury Port exports more alumina than any other port in the world - 9.6 million tonnes per annum - and this will continue to increase as BHP Billiton Worsley Alumina brings on line its current expansion from 3.5 to 4.6mtpa.

Other major exports from the Port are woodchips, mineral sands, silica sands, spodumene and copper concentrate from the Boddington Gold Mine.

Bunbury’s Outer Harbour has been in operation more than 47 years. The Inner Harbour, which opened in 1976, welcomed the arrival of the 4,000th ship at Alcoa’s Berth 4 last year.