Coastal shipping should be used in emergency relief effort

The Mari­time Uni­on says New Zea­l­and coastal ships should be part of the relief effort to bring sup­plies to regions dev­ast­ated by Cyc­lone Gab­ri­elle.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says there are sev­er­al New Zea­l­and flagged coastal ves­sels cap­able of deliv­er­ing spe­cial­ized 20ft fuel con­tain­ers to ports such as Gis­borne or Napi­er.

These fuel stor­age units are cur­rently shipped from New Zea­l­and to sup­ply fuel to the Pacific Islands.

Mr Har­ris­on says New Zea­l­and coastal ships can also deliv­er “reefer” (refri­ger­ated) con­tain­ers and stand­ard con­tain­ers, and use onboard cranes if required.

“These ves­sels have the abil­ity to uplift the heavy machinery and goods required in the rebuild and bypass the broken road and rail net­work.”

He says many of these New Zea­l­and flagged and crewed ships have only recently come into ser­vice on the New Zea­l­and coast due to recent invest­ment in coastal ship­ping by this Gov­ern­ment.

Mr Har­ris­on says if emer­gency accom­mod­a­tion in isol­ated region­al centres was over­whelmed, there is noth­ing to stop a Cook Strait ferry from being tem­por­ar­ily relo­cated to a region­al port to provide shel­ter and cater­ing facil­it­ies.

He says it is unfor­tu­nate that inter­na­tion­al fuel com­pan­ies chose to remove New Zea­l­and coastal fuel tankers in 2022 when Marsden Point refinery was closed.

“If the oil com­pan­ies had retained one of the ves­sels, we would have the option for a New Zea­l­and flagged ship to divert to a region in need and act­ing as a float­ing fuel stor­age facil­ity.”

Mr Har­ris­on says the situ­ation in Gis­borne and Hawkes Bay shows how exposed New Zealand’s fuel sup­ply and gen­er­al sup­ply chain is, both in the cur­rent short term emer­gency and for the recov­ery peri­od.

He says it is essen­tial to build resi­li­ence into New Zealand’s trans­port net­work by max­im­ising the use of New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping.