Napier Port automation may come at high cost

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and says the intro­duc­tion of self-driv­ing trucks at Port of Napi­er is a risky move, cit­ing the dis­astrous con­sequences of the Ports of Auck­land (POAL) auto­ma­tion pro­ject as a cau­tion­ary tale for the industry.

MUNZ Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says the move by Napi­er Port to intro­duce a fleet of autonom­ous bat­tery-elec­tric trucks in 2026 is a threat to jobs, safety, and pro­ductiv­ity across the sec­tor. The pro­ject is estim­ated to cost between $20 mil­lion and $25 mil­lion and res­ult in redund­an­cies among heavy plant oper­at­ors.

Mr Find­lay says while the imme­di­ate work­ers facing dis­place­ment at Napi­er Port are not MUNZ mem­bers, this devel­op­ment threatens all port work­ers and all work­ers across New Zea­l­and.

“Port of Napi­er oper­ates under a mixed own­er­ship mod­el. As a com­pany major­ity-owned by the Hawke’s Bay Region­al Coun­cil, Napi­er Port has a social respons­ib­il­ity to the loc­al people and the com­munity.”

Mr Find­lay says Ports of Auckland’s failed attempt at auto­ma­tion stands as a costly les­son for New Zea­l­and port oper­at­ors.

“The aban­don­ment of the auto­mated straddle car­ri­er pro­gramme at POAL in June 2022 was an inev­it­able res­ult of the hubris and irre­spons­ib­il­ity of the pre­vi­ous man­age­ment under then CEO Tony Gib­son,” says Mr Find­lay.

This fail­ure res­ul­ted in a dir­ect write-off of $65 mil­lion in soft­ware and sys­tems, but the fig­ure under­states the true eco­nom­ic dam­age. A com­pre­hens­ive report estim­ated the total cost to the port and the wider New Zea­l­and eco­nomy at a stag­ger­ing $1.2 bil­lion.

The fail­ure at Ports of Auck­land demon­strated that auto­ma­tion is not a guar­an­teed route to effi­ciency, lead­ing instead to severe con­ges­tion, plum­met­ing pro­ductiv­ity, and major safety risks, says Mr Find­lay.

“Man­age­ment at POAL failed to listen to the warn­ings from MUNZ and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF), which were later vin­dic­ated by the fail­ure. We urge Napi­er Port not to make the same mis­take.”

Auto­ma­tion is pro­moted as inev­it­able, yet MUNZ is ques­tion­ing why the job dis­place­ment falls squarely on work­ers on the front­line.

“We ask where the AI axe will fall next. Will port man­agers and CEOs be auto­mated out of a job if AI can demon­strably do a bet­ter job of plan­ning, strategy, and risk assess­ment? Or will we just see more and more man­agers and less and less work­ers?”

Mr Find­lay says MUNZ is engaged with the glob­al fight to ensure tech­no­logy serves work­ers, not replaces them, stand­ing firm with our inter­na­tion­al broth­ers and sis­ters in the mari­time industry.

“MUNZ is attend­ing the ‘People Over Profit: Anti-Auto­ma­tion Con­fer­ence’ being hos­ted by the Inter­na­tion­al Dock­ers Coun­cil (IDC) in Lis­bon, Por­tugal in Novem­ber 2025. This sum­mit aims to col­lect­ively strategise, share exper­i­ences, and strengthen the united front against job-repla­cing auto­ma­tion.”