Mayor concedes Port of Auckland privatisation will lead to increased costs

The Mar­itime Union has respond­ed to claims by the May­or of Auckland’s office the Union is engaged in “unfound­ed scare­mon­ger­ing” about the pro­posed sale of the Port of Auck­land.

The Mar­itime Union released a new report last week which esti­mat­ed pri­vati­sa­tion would result in a min­i­mum of NZ$70 mil­lion in extra costs to port users annu­al­ly.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says the Union is stand­ing by its cal­cu­la­tions that pri­vati­sa­tion of oper­a­tions at Ports of Auck­land will hit local port users hard, and flow into fur­ther cost of liv­ing stress for the pub­lic.

He says if the Mayor’s office does not agree with the fig­ures, it should release the fig­ures it is work­ing with.

Mr Har­ri­son says the May­or has com­mis­sioned Aus­tralian con­sul­tants Flagstaff at great expense to work on the pro­posed sale, so their find­ings should be made pub­lic.

He queried the Mayor’s Office state­ment to media that “the port […] did not have a man­date to sub­sidise importers with arti­fi­cial­ly low charges.”

Mr Har­ri­son says there is no evi­dence of any arti­fi­cial­ly low charges cur­rent­ly, but “arti­fi­cial­ly high charges” would result if the monop­oly Port was pri­va­tised.

The state­ment from the May­oral Office also stat­ed “the May­or and coun­cil­lors” want­ed to see increased charges for port activ­i­ty to gen­er­ate “improved returns.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the above state­ment con­firms fears that port pri­vati­sa­tion would hit Auck­lan­ders hard.

“If these improved returns are going to a glob­al port oper­a­tor, how does this help local port users and con­sumers who will be pay­ing for their monop­oly returns?”

He says pri­va­tised port oper­a­tions in Aus­tralia have seen sur­charges of over AU$100 per con­tain­er imposed on port users, who have no oth­er options.

The new report is enti­tled “The costs and risks of pri­vatis­ing oper­a­tions at the Ports of Auck­land” and was com­mis­sioned by the Mar­itime Union. It draws on inter­na­tion­al research includ­ing the expe­ri­ence of Aus­tralian ports in recent years.

Auck­land Coun­cil is review­ing options to sell an oper­at­ing lease for the Port of Auck­land to a glob­al net­work ter­mi­nal oper­a­tor, and has com­mis­sioned con­sul­tants Flagstaff to seek expres­sions of inter­est.