‘Port productivity’ has answers that corporate interests would rather ignore

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ) has respon­ded strongly to claims of a “pro­ductiv­ity crisis” in New Zea­l­and ports.

MUNZ Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says New Zeal­and’s sup­ply chain vul­ner­ab­il­ity has its roots in the lack of a nation­al ports and coastal ship­ping strategy.

“New Zea­l­and does­n’t have a port pro­ductiv­ity prob­lem – it has a ship­ping prob­lem and a fail­ure by Gov­ern­ment to provide lead­er­ship,” says Mr Find­lay.

He says the reli­ance on ‘mar­ket forces’ to drive our sup­ply chain and port infra­struc­ture has been a fail­ure, which has allowed power­ful glob­al ship­ping lines to dom­in­ate our import and export trade.

Mr Find­lay says ports have been set up to engage in paro­chi­al com­pet­i­tion against each oth­er, with inter­na­tion­al car­ri­ers able to dic­tate terms and aban­don ser­vices at a moment’s notice, leav­ing regions stran­ded.

“This has led to mis­al­loc­a­tion of cap­it­al by indi­vidu­al ports in infra­struc­ture, and a con­stant down­ward pres­sure in industry wages, con­di­tions, safety and job secur­ity.”

MUNZ has repeated its calls for a nation­ally coordin­ated ‘hub and spoke’ port strategy backed by New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping.

This would see inter­na­tion­al ves­sels call at sev­er­al key ‘hub’ ports, with a revital­ized fleet of New Zea­l­and-flagged and crewed coastal ships ser­vi­cing the region­al ‘spoke’ ports, says Mr Find­lay.

“This integ­rated sys­tem would keep our ports in pub­lic own­er­ship, build sup­ply chain resi­li­ence, reduce con­ges­tion on our roads, and cre­ate skilled mari­time jobs for New Zeal­anders.”

Mr Find­lay says a one-sided emphas­is of put­ting speed before safety on New Zeal­and’s water­fronts had led to a health and safety crisis.

“When busi­ness lob­by­ists talk about ‘effi­ciency’ and ‘pro­ductiv­ity’, they are often talk­ing about cut­ting corners on safety. We’ve seen this before in New Zea­l­and, and it has come with a ter­rible cost.”

“The les­sons from the Pike River tragedy were that you can­not have a ‘pro­duc­tion before people’ cul­ture.”

Mr Find­lay says the recent turn­around at the Port of Auck­land is proof that work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with a uni­on­ized work­force is the key to a suc­cess­ful and pro­duct­ive port.

“The new man­age­ment team at Port of Auck­land chose to work with the Mari­time Uni­on through a Tri­part­ite Accord. The res­ult is a dra­mat­ic­ally safer work­place, record profits, and improved pro­ductiv­ity,” says Mr Find­lay.

Under the col­lab­or­at­ive mod­el, Port of Auck­land has seen a 55% increase in under­ly­ing profit and a 5% rise in con­tain­er volumes in the last fin­an­cial year, while sig­ni­fic­antly improv­ing its safety per­form­ance.

The Mari­time Uni­on is urging the Gov­ern­ment to show lead­er­ship in ports and coastal ship­ping, and has sub­mit­ted its nation­al port and coastal ship­ping strategy to the cur­rent Par­lia­ment­ary Inquiry on the Ports and Mari­time Sec­tor.