The Wharf is important as an example of a timber engineering structure on a scale unparalleled in Australia and exceptional in world terms. It also represents the use of Australian timbers in sizes and quantities which would never be matched in the future and in a situation in which their durability and other properties can be assessed. The structure demonstrates engineering and construction processes and the surviving equipment includes the only electrically operated goods conveyors in the State and three of the oldest operating electric lifts in Sydney, which demonstrate the processes of goods handling in the past. It is important for its historic and symbolic associations with Australia's involvement in both World Wars, as the embarkation and disembarkation point for troops, and with immigrants for whom the wharf was their arrival point. The overall scale of the structure, the sizes of the individual components and the quality of construction are in the technical sense outstanding and have impact upon the observer comparable with that of the great monuments of antiquity. The public reaction to proposals for the demolition of the wharf shows that there is an extensive community esteem to these qualities.