Maritime Union joins meeting to keep Marsden Point refinery in operation

A pub­lic meet­ing being held in Whangarei on Sun­day will fea­ture five speak­ers rep­re­sent­ing key play­ers try­ing to get the gov­ern­ment to take action to keep the Mars­den Point oil refin­ery in oper­a­tion.

Craig Har­ri­son is sec­re­tary of the Mar­itime Union which rep­re­sents the sea­far­ers who crewed the two coastal tankers that deliv­ered refined fuel from Mars­den Point to ports around the coun­try.

Aaron Holy­rood is a senior oper­a­tor who has spent most of his work­ing life oper­at­ing the com­plex equip­ment that turns crude oil into fuel for cars, trucks, and air­craft.

Bri­an Cox is the chief exec­u­tive of the Bio-Ener­gy Asso­ci­a­tion, whose mem­bers are involved in research, devel­op­ment, and pro­duc­tion of advanced alter­na­tive fuels that a work­ing refin­ery could blend with cur­rent fuel pro­duc­tion.

Edward Miller is from First Union which rep­re­sents most of the work­ers bring made redun­dant by the clo­sure of the refin­ery and whose skills and knowl­edge are being lost to the coun­try as many of them head off for jobs over­seas.

Chris Leitch is leader of the Social Cred­it par­ty which gath­ered 18,300 sig­na­tures on a peti­tion and has lead the polit­i­cal action to high­light the risk to the coun­try’s fuel secu­ri­ty that rely­ing on import­ed refined fuel pos­es.

The meet­ing starts at 1pm on Sun­day in Whangarei’s Forum North cen­tre.