Government transport plan fails to provide economic security

The Mar­itime Union says the new Draft Gov­ern­ment Pol­i­cy State­ment (GPS) on Land Trans­port 2024–2034 fails to plan for a resilient and secure trans­port sys­tem, putting the New Zealand econ­o­my at risk.

The pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment intro­duced coastal ship­ping as a new activ­i­ty class in its GPS on land trans­port in 2021.

It invest­ed $30 mil­lion in the coastal ship­ping sec­tor which result­ed in new ves­sels com­ing onto the New Zealand coast, reduc­ing road con­ges­tion, improv­ing resilience, and reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions.

This progress has now ground to a halt, with coastal ship­ping ignored in the new Draft GPS on Land Trans­port 2024.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says for the Gov­ern­ment to sim­ply leave out coastal ship­ping is a fail­ure of insight into the long term needs of the trans­port sec­tor.

Mr Har­ri­son says the lessons of the last few years are obvi­ous.

“We have seen major dis­rup­tion to New Zealand trans­port links through the pan­dem­ic and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters includ­ing cyclones and earth­quakes, with regions left iso­lat­ed and at risk.”

Mr Har­ri­son says New Zealand needs a bal­anced, mul­ti-modal sys­tem that pri­ori­tis­es redun­dan­cy and resilience in trans­port.

“This new draft doc­u­ment notes New Zealand has faced sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges from these events, but then ignores the impor­tant role of domes­tic coastal ship­ping that is now recog­nised in the indus­try.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the Gov­ern­ment seems to be bas­ing its trans­port strat­e­gy on deliv­er­ing for its donors, rather than any ratio­nal and bal­anced approach.

“As the rest of the world moves towards low emis­sion, resilient trans­port modes, and pre­pares for cli­mate change dri­ven extreme weath­er events, New Zealand is left exposed and vul­ner­a­ble.”

He says with the Cook Strait fer­ry con­nec­tion in lim­bo, coastal ship­ping ignored, and a cri­sis in sea­far­er train­ing, New Zealand is mov­ing towards devel­op­ing world sta­tus.

“The Gov­ern­ment now has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect course and focus on the future resilience of New Zealand’s econ­o­my – or go in reverse gear by pro­mot­ing a con­gest­ed, pol­lut­ed and vul­ner­a­ble trans­port sys­tem.”