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.