Coastal shipping rebound offers a bright future 

Sup­ply chain prob­lems will soon be relieved by the rapid scal­ing up of New Zealand’s coastal ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty.

Paci­fi­ca Ship­ping has announced it will intro­duce a new con­tain­er ship to the New Zealand coast to com­ple­ment its exist­ing ves­sel, MV Moana Chief.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says in the space of a few months, the coastal ship­ping indus­try has seen an unprece­dent­ed turn­around.

“A large part of the cred­it has to go to the Gov­ern­ment and Min­is­ter of Trans­port Michael Wood who has pushed a proac­tive and pos­i­tive trans­port pol­i­cy to get coastal ship­ping back in the game after decades of neglect and poor pol­i­cy.”

He says the recent announce­ment of Gov­ern­ment fund­ing sup­port to four oper­a­tors to intro­duce new coastal ship­ping ser­vices, includ­ing Paci­fi­ca, has been instru­men­tal in kick­start­ing the sec­tor.

In addi­tion to the four oper­a­tors who received fund­ing sup­port, glob­al ship­per Maer­sk have announced a new ded­i­cat­ed New Zealand coastal ser­vice, Maer­sk Coastal Con­nect, with two New Zealand crewed con­tain­er ships start­ing in July 2022.

Mr Har­ri­son says these new ves­sels will employ skilled New Zealand crews includ­ing Mar­itime Union mem­bers.

He says there are mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits for the trans­port sec­tor and wider soci­ety.

“Just to start with, the new ship­ping ser­vices will ease port and road con­ges­tion, improve sched­ule reli­a­bil­i­ty, and reduce emis­sions.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the big les­son from the last two years is New Zealand need­ed its own ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty that could pro­vide resilience and reli­a­bil­i­ty in a volatile glob­al sit­u­a­tion.

He says the next goal for the Mar­itime Union would be work­ing with indus­try, Gov­ern­ment and train­ing providers to build oppor­tu­ni­ties for young New Zealan­ders want­i­ng a career in the mar­itime indus­try.