FOR two full years - until the Newcastle Herald obtained relevant documentation in 2016 - the NSW Coalition government repeatedly denied that its port privatisations included a confidential set of arrangements designed to protect the new owners of Port Botany from a rival container terminal in Newcastle.
Since their confirmation, the contractual handcuffs on Newcastle have been examined in a range of forums - in the media, in parliament, and in the courts, where the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission set out to prove that the privatisations were "inherently anti-competitive" and "of significance for the Australian economy".
