Let Ports of Auckland do its job

The Mar­itime Union says Ports of Auck­land is back on track and there is no need to “mess with suc­cess.”

The Union was respond­ing to news of a review of the Ports of Auck­land by Flagstaff Con­sult­ing Group being fund­ed by the Mayor’s office.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Branch Sec­re­tary Rus­sell Mayn says the his­to­ry of the Ports of Auck­land in recent decades pro­vides one les­son.

“When there is prag­mat­ic man­age­ment that works with the work­force, and focus­es on get­ting the basics right, we get a suc­cess­ful port.”

Mr Mayn says stat­ed goals for the Ports of improv­ing safe­ty, oper­at­ing per­for­mance and return on assets are all pos­i­tive and are all being achieved.

He says the turn­around of the Ports per­for­mance in the last year has been remark­able.

“The Ports of Auck­land is rapid­ly improv­ing div­i­dends, it has dumped the failed automa­tion project, it has trans­formed the work­place cul­ture by work­ing with the Union, and it has tak­en lead­er­ship in areas like health and safe­ty.”

My Mayn warns that part-pri­va­ti­za­tion or mul­ti­ple oper­a­tors in ter­mi­nals else­where often led to a destruc­tive process.

“Wages, con­di­tions, and health and safe­ty become bar­gain­ing chips, and it would move us fur­ther away from the inte­grat­ed, focussed plan we need for New Zealand ports.”

Mr Mayn says it is not a good time to intro­duce fur­ther uncer­tain­ty around New Zealand’s major import port.

“New Zealand will con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence shocks to its sup­ply chain, whether from extreme weath­er, pan­demics, or a volatile glob­al sit­u­a­tion, and we need to be firm­ing up our capa­bil­i­ty.”

Mr Mayn says May­or Wayne Brown has in the past expressed his con­cern about the per­for­mance of the Ports of Auck­land, which was rea­son­able since the pre­vi­ous man­age­ment and Board had made many errors.

Like­wise, there was a wide­ly agreed need to devel­op oth­er ports in the north­ern region to cater for the grow­ing freight task.

“How­ev­er, our view is the Ports of Auck­land is now on an extreme­ly promis­ing tra­jec­to­ry which will deliv­er div­i­dends to the peo­ple of Auck­land while main­tain­ing its impor­tant strate­gic role in the sup­ply chain.”

“We need to let the Ports do its job.”