Coastal shipping must complement rail and road

The Mari­time Uni­on says the Government’s announce­ment today of major invest­ment in rail is a pos­it­ive move, and is urging more action on coastal ship­ping.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the Government’s approach of long-term invest­ment was the cor­rect one and showed vis­ion for the future.

“For dec­ades, trans­port policy has been dom­in­ated by short-term think­ing and ves­ted interests. We now have an oppor­tun­ity to move towards an effi­cient, integ­rated multi-mod­al trans­port sys­tem for the 21st cen­tury.”

The integ­ra­tion of dif­fer­ent trans­port modes around New Zea­l­and ports was an urgent require­ment.

Mr Har­ris­on says the bene­fits of a low car­bon foot­print and sup­ply chain resi­li­ence are strong factors in favour of coastal ship­ping.

He says revital­ised coastal ship­ping on the ‘blue high­way’ would com­ple­ment rail and road, link­ing region­al ports with inter­na­tion­al cargo hubs.

“Coastal ship­ping is the miss­ing part of the jig­saw in our trans­port mix.”

Mr Har­ris­on says the Gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to rebuild­ing New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping, and it needed to keep up the momentum by act­ing soon.

Key reforms required were chan­ging the Mari­time Trans­port Act to provide a level play­ing field for New Zea­l­and ship­ping against glob­al oper­at­ors, and train­ing and devel­op­ment for a mari­time work­force.