New coastal shipping report welcomed

The Mari­time Uni­on has wel­comed a new report on coastal ship­ping released today by Min­is­ter of Trans­port the Hon. Michael Wood.

The Coastal Ship­ping Invest­ment Approach State-of-Play report was com­mis­sioned by Waka Kotahi NZ Trans­port Agency, to help determ­ine pri­or­it­ies for $30 mil­lion of fund­ing ear­marked for coastal ship­ping in the 2021–24 Nation­al Land Trans­port Pro­gramme (NLTP).

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the report has drawn on a wide range of input from the mari­time industry and iden­ti­fied import­ant areas for work.

He says it is good to see core issues being iden­ti­fied, includ­ing the need for prac­tic­al meas­ures to build the coastal ship­ping mode up to its poten­tial.

“Issues such as a nation­al ports strategy and the import­ance of sup­ply chain secur­ity are high­lighted in this report, which the Mari­time Uni­on endorses.”

Mr Har­ris­on says that the import­ant step now is to quickly advance prac­tic­al out­comes from the report, as New Zea­l­and was in the middle of a glob­al sup­ply chain crisis.

He says he is con­cerned that Marsden Point mov­ing from a refinery to an import ter­min­al could take New Zea­l­and coastal tankers off the coast.

“This would be mov­ing in exactly the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion to the recom­mend­a­tions of this report, so the Gov­ern­ment needs to take action on ensur­ing New Zea­l­and coastal tankers remain in ser­vice.”

Mr Har­ris­on says the Mari­time Uni­on is in reg­u­lar dis­cus­sions with ship­ping oper­at­ors to build our coastal ship­ping cap­ab­il­ity.