Automation report confirms total debacle with failed Ports of Auckland project

A new report into the fail­ure of the automa­tion project at Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed (POAL) is a shock­ing indict­ment of pre­vi­ous man­age­ment. What can be learned?

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says the inde­pen­dent report com­mis­sioned by Auck­land City, and released today, had iden­ti­fied mul­ti­ple fail­ures in gov­er­nance, over­sight and account­abil­i­ty.

Mr Har­ri­son says the costs of the fias­co will run into hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars when tak­ing into account the delays caused by the project and recon­fig­ur­ing the ports and plant to man­u­al oper­a­tion.

He says the Union red flagged the project time and again, as Union mem­bers worked on the ground at the Ports and iden­ti­fied numer­ous prob­lems.

“Sad­ly, our con­cerns were dis­re­gard­ed at the time, but if the Board and Coun­cil had lis­tened, the project would not have had this frankly dis­as­trous out­come.”

He says the automa­tion plan came on top of an anti-union agen­da at the Ports under the lead­er­ship of for­mer CEO Tony Gib­son.

Mr Gib­son is fac­ing charges under health and safe­ty leg­is­la­tion from his time as CEO when sev­er­al deaths occurred at the Ports – and anoth­er Coun­cil report found mas­sive fail­ings in health and safe­ty prac­tice at the Ports dur­ing his tenure.

Mr Har­ri­son says the deci­sion to scrap the automa­tion project by the incom­ing POAL CEO had been the only log­i­cal move, and there was now a more respect­ful rela­tion­ship between senior man­age­ment and the Union work­force at POAL.

“Ports of Auck­land has a great future, but has to make up for a lost decade when an anti-work­er, arro­gant and unac­count­able man­age­ment cul­ture was off the leash at the Ports – and lessons must be learned from what hap­pened.”

Mr Har­ri­son says as the Union’s pre­vi­ous warn­ings have been vin­di­cat­ed, the way to ensure bet­ter results in future was to have a Union mem­ber on the Board of Direc­tors to rep­re­sent the work­ers view­point, a com­mon prac­tice in many suc­cess­ful economies.