Is Santa Brown coming to town – or is port sale a plan fit for a Grinch?

The May­or of Auck­land has paid back a busi­ness class air­fare to Aus­tralia from Octo­ber, after vis­it­ing offi­cials and politi­cians over the privat­isa­tion of port oper­a­tions.

Accord­ing to Coun­cil rules, short haul flights such as this have to be eco­nomy class, and the dif­fer­ence has been refun­ded by the May­or.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says any­one can make a mis­take, but the big­ger pic­ture of port privat­iz­a­tion would cost Auck­land rate­pay­ers a lot more than a busi­ness class flight in the long run.

Mr Har­ris­on says if the Port of Auck­land is sold, it would be ‘Christ­mas every day’ for the new own­ers – as it had been in Aus­tralia, where extra port fees from private oper­at­ors were hit­ting busi­ness and con­sumers hard.

“Every present under the Christ­mas tree will have a hefty price tag if a private port mono­poly hits Auck­land with dec­ades of Grinch style price gou­ging.”

Mr Har­ris­on says this Christ­mas, the Mari­time Uni­on is ask­ing for a full and trans­par­ent release of fig­ures as to how much the port sale plan is cost­ing the rate­pay­er.

The Auck­land Coun­cil has put port privat­iz­a­tion out to con­sulta­tion after a close vote earli­er this month.

New Tal­bot Mills polling on behalf of the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ) released in Decem­ber 2023 shows a vast major­ity of Auck­landers are against the pro­pos­al to privat­ise the Auck­land Port – includ­ing a major­ity of voters for each of the cur­rent coali­tion gov­ern­ment parties.

A sug­ges­ted New Year Res­ol­u­tion for the May­or?

“Leave the Port of Auck­land in pub­lic own­er­ship,” says Mr Har­ris­on.