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.”