Maritime Union calls for New Zealand shipping to resolve supply chain crisis

There needs to be innov­at­ive responses to ongo­ing ship­ping con­ges­tion.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says it is essen­tial that New Zea­l­and devel­ops its own ship­ping capa­city and builds in a level of redund­ancy and options for export­ers and import­ers and coastal freight.

He says a short­age of glob­al ship­ping capa­city was lead­ing to severe ongo­ing con­ges­tion and delays in New Zealand’s sup­ply chain.

There is no clear pic­ture of when, or if, the situ­ation might resolve, he says.

Mr Har­ris­on says there has been a massive shift in the last year in focus for New Zea­l­and trans­port with con­ges­tion seen as a crit­ic­al issue.

“Pre­vi­ously, there was an obses­sion with con­veni­ence, speed, just-in-time sup­ply chains. Now that has been com­pletely changed and we are look­ing at the need for secure and reli­able ser­vices.”

He says New Zea­l­and made a mis­take by rely­ing on unac­count­able glob­al ship­ping com­pan­ies, who had releg­ated New Zea­l­and to the bot­tom of the list, and were now con­cen­trat­ing on more prof­it­able, big­ger mar­kets.

“Even ports the size of Sydney are now being affected, with Maersk announ­cing more ser­vice changes recently.”

New Zea­l­and export­ers have been look­ing at char­ter­ing their own ves­sels to ensure access to over­seas mar­kets.

Mr Har­ris­on says char­ter­ing comes with its own risks, includ­ing using low qual­ity Flag of Con­veni­ence ship­ping that could be unsafe and uneth­ic­al.

He says a frag­men­ted approach will fail, and New Zea­l­and needs quickly upgrade its own inter­na­tion­al and domest­ic coastal ship­ping capa­city in a coordin­ated and coher­ent way.

There was plenty of oppor­tun­ity for ded­ic­ated New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping to ensure region­al ports were being ser­viced in a reli­able way, but there needed to be Gov­ern­ment and industry sup­port, and imme­di­ate changes to laws that dis­ad­vant­aged loc­al ship­ping oper­at­ors.

Mr Har­ris­on says there is also poten­tial for a region­al “ocean­ic bubble” where New Zea­l­and flagged ves­sels or a nation­ally-owned ship­ping oper­at­or could provide access to Aus­tralia and the Pacific Islands.

“This would give our Pacific neigh­bours and our export­ers con­fid­ence that ves­sels trad­ing these routes are clear of COVID and their pri­or­ity was New Zea­l­and.”

He says it is essen­tial that New Zea­l­and has resi­li­ence and flex­ib­il­ity for its ship­ping require­ments.