Parliamentary Inquiry into Ports and Maritime Sector

In July 2025, the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and made a sub­mis­sion to the Par­lia­ment­ary Inquiry into Ports and the Mari­time Sec­tor, out­lining crit­ic­al issues and pro­pos­ing a stra­tegic vis­ion for New Zeal­and’s mari­time freight industry.

The sub­mis­sion high­lights ser­i­ous issues with the cur­rent sys­tem, includ­ing:

• Dis­or­gan­ized Com­pet­i­tion: Ports oper­ate as indi­vidu­al, profit-max­im­ising entit­ies, lead­ing to inef­fi­cient com­pet­i­tion, mis­al­loc­a­tion of cap­it­al (e.g., smal­ler ports over-invest­ing in infra­struc­ture for large inter­na­tion­al ves­sels they rarely attract), and increased costs for freight cus­tom­ers.
• “Open Coast” Policy: This policy allows inter­na­tion­al ves­sels to carry cargo between New Zea­l­and ports, under­min­ing loc­al coastal ship­ping, lead­ing to exploited for­eign work­ers, and mak­ing New Zea­l­and stra­tegic­ally vul­ner­able.
• Mar­ket Power of Inter­na­tion­al Ship­pers: Inter­na­tion­al ship­ping lines lever­age com­pet­i­tion between ports to drive down fees while char­ging high prices to loc­al freight cus­tom­ers, and often demand pri­or­ity over coastal ship­ping.
• Uncer­tainty for Region­al Ports: Smal­ler ports face insec­ur­ity due to reli­ance on a few inter­na­tion­al lines, mak­ing ser­vices unre­li­able and threat­en­ing their viab­il­ity.
• Under­mined Trans­port Plan­ning: The lack of a nation­al strategy hinders effect­ive plan­ning for coastal ship­ping and rail, lead­ing to over-reli­ance on more costly and pol­lut­ing road trans­port.
• Increased Gov­ern­ment Costs/Risks: Hav­ing inter­na­tion­al freight at numer­ous ports spreads cus­toms and bio­se­c­ur­ity resources thin, increas­ing costs and risks.

To address these issues, MUNZ advoc­ates for a uni­fied New Zea­l­and Ports Strategy centered on a “hub and spoke” mod­el. This mod­el would des­ig­nate 2–4 main import/export ports (hubs) with region­al ports (spokes) feed­ing goods to and from these hubs via reli­able coastal ship­ping.

The pro­posed bene­fits of this strategy include:

• Elim­in­at­ing Costly Com­pet­i­tion: Pro­mot­ing cooper­a­tion between ports for the great­er nation­al good.
• Effi­cient Cap­it­al Alloc­a­tion: Ensur­ing smart, coordin­ated invest­ment in port infra­struc­ture.
• Enabling Coastal Ship­ping: Fos­ter­ing a healthy domest­ic coastal fleet, cre­at­ing loc­al jobs, and enhan­cing nation­al resi­li­ence.
• More Reli­able Region­al Ser­vices: Provid­ing fre­quent and depend­able ship­ping for smal­ler ports.
• Improved Trans­port Plan­ning: Facil­it­at­ing bet­ter integ­ra­tion of coastal ship­ping and rail, redu­cing reli­ance on truck­ing, and lower­ing green­house emis­sions.
• Reduced Gov­ern­ment Costs: Optim­iz­ing cus­toms and bio­se­c­ur­ity oper­a­tions.

The sub­mis­sion argues that a suc­cess­ful Ports Strategy must rule out privat­isa­tion of ports and their oper­a­tions. Privat­isa­tion is incom­pat­ible with optim­ising the port net­work and would lead to worse out­comes for New Zea­l­and busi­nesses and the broad­er eco­nomy.

MUNZ is call­ing for a planned, cooper­at­ive approach led by Gov­ern­ment to unlock the full poten­tial of New Zeal­and’s mari­time freight sec­tor, pri­or­it­iz­ing nation­al interest over indi­vidu­al port profits and ensur­ing a resi­li­ent, effi­cient, and loc­ally-focused industry.