National strategy required for future of New Zealand ports and shipping

The Mari­time Uni­on says there needs to be nation­al level plan­ning around ports and coastal ship­ping, oth­er­wise New Zea­l­and is going to find itself in a bad pos­i­tion.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says there needs to be a stronger response to build­ing resi­li­ence into the sup­ply chain.

The Pro­ductiv­ity Com­mis­sion has noted dis­rup­tions to glob­al sup­ply chain trends are likely to become more fre­quent with causes includ­ing pan­dem­ics, war and cli­mate change.

Mr Har­ris­on says the Uni­on is call­ing for polit­ic­al solu­tions includ­ing a port strategy and invest­ment in coastal ship­ping.

He says one prob­lem is how New Zea­l­and ports are primar­ily seen as income streams for own­ers, as opposed to nation­al infra­struc­ture that under­pins the suc­cess­ful func­tion­ing of the eco­nomy.

An example of lack of co-ordin­a­tion is the mul­tiple con­flicts around the future of the Port of Auck­land, he says.

“In the case of Port of Auck­land, we have major road­ing and rail pro­jects being pro­posed at the same time as a privat­iz­a­tion agenda and plans to shrink the port des­pite no clear altern­at­ive capa­city – in oth­er words, total con­fu­sion.”

He says claims there can be a straight­for­ward relo­ca­tion of port activ­it­ies to North­port (Whangarei) or Taur­anga are unreal­ist­ic.

“North­port does not even have a rail link at this stage, and Taur­anga is oper­at­ing close to capa­city. This situ­ation is not going to be resolved by high­way mega-pro­jects that simply move con­ges­tion around.”

He says with ongo­ing cli­mate-driv­en weath­er events becom­ing more severe, pro­pos­als to sink more and more resources into road­ing pro­jects shows a refus­al to face facts. 

Mr Har­ris­on says there needs to be a stra­tegic shift to build the role of coastal ship­ping.

He says New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping provided resi­li­ence that was demon­strated dur­ing COVID and dur­ing nat­ur­al dis­asters such as earth­quakes or flood­ing, when region­al land links were out of action.

“For a frac­tion of the enorm­ous price tag of mon­ster motor­ways, New Zea­l­and could become a lead­er with invest­ment into low emis­sion coastal ship­ping, and cre­ate safer, less con­ges­ted roads.”

“The recent Gov­ern­ment invest­ment and res­ult­ing growth in coastal ship­ping shows the poten­tial but there needs to be an integ­rated ship­ping and ports policy to build on this.”

He says that the Mari­time Uni­on is cam­paign­ing for changes to the Mari­time Trans­port Act to pro­mote New Zea­l­and ship­ping and mari­time jobs.