New Zealand shipping answer to supply chain crisis

As con­cerns about New Zealand’s sup­ply chain grow, the Mar­itime Union says the answers are there to alle­vi­ate ship­ping and port con­ges­tion.

Numer­ous indus­try sources are pre­dict­ing ongo­ing dis­rup­tion over the Christ­mas peri­od into the New Year, with no end in sight.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says there are mul­ti­ple prob­lems in the glob­al sup­ply chain, but New Zealand has left itself exposed due to bad poli­cies.

He says a short term prof­it approach had result­ed in a brit­tle sup­ply chain that was now fail­ing.

As the ship­ping short­age wors­ened, glob­al oper­a­tors were focussed on big­ger inter­na­tion­al mar­kets and New Zealand was miss­ing out, he says.

“The world has changed very quick­ly, and we need to quick­ly build up New Zealand capa­bil­i­ty to move our goods.”

New Zealand busi­ness­es are now hav­ing to char­ter ships to get their prod­ucts to mar­kets.

Mr Har­ri­son says the dan­ger of this frag­ment­ed approach is some major oper­a­tors may get ser­viced, but small­er region­al indus­tries may find them­selves locked out.

“We need to have a New Zealand coastal ship­ping fleet for domes­tic and region­al ser­vices, and we need to look at a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed sys­tem for char­ter­ing ves­sels, crewed by New Zealand sea­far­ers.”

There are pos­i­tive signs with a com­mit­ment from the Gov­ern­ment and fund­ing to devel­op coastal ship­ping, but Mr Har­ri­son says the sit­u­a­tion requires more bold and inno­v­a­tive think­ing.

The Mar­itime Union is cam­paign­ing to get New Zealand coastal ship­ping pro­vid­ing ded­i­cat­ed capa­bil­i­ty on a hub and spoke mod­el between inter­na­tion­al and region­al ports.

“It is now clear that a mar­itime trade based nation like New Zealand needs to have secu­ri­ty and resilience in its sup­ply chain, and that means New Zealand ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty.”