Port Unions say Port of Lyttelton should be held in local ownership

The two Unions rep­re­sent­ing port work­ers in New Zealand have come out against a pro­posed deal that would see the Port of Lyt­tel­ton pass into effec­tive con­trol of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate Hutchi­son.

The Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union (RMTU) and the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) are work­ing togeth­er to pro­mote local con­trol of the port.

Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Wayne But­son says the sell-off means a vital piece of New Zealand infra­struc­ture will be effec­tive­ly going into over­seas con­trol, with seri­ous reper­cus­sions for the New Zealand econ­o­my.

“The poten­tial is there for the port to be com­plete­ly pri­va­tised some time down the track.”

He says the deal is short-sight­ed, and will fur­ther place New Zealand’s export trade out­side New Zealand con­trol.

“The con­sol­i­da­tion of ports and ship­pers into a few over­seas oper­a­tors could see importers and exporters faced with price hikes.”

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the takeover by multi­na­tion­al Hutchi­son has the poten­tial to desta­bi­lize the mar­itime indus­try in New Zealand.

“Hutchi­son could use their inter­na­tion­al clout to pro­vide busi­ness advan­tages for Lyt­tel­ton that oth­er ports don’t have.”

He says this could mean the clo­sure of oth­er South Island ports, with a dev­as­tat­ing effect on jobs and the rev­enues that cur­rent­ly ben­e­fit local com­mu­ni­ties through local own­er­ship of ports.

Mr Han­son says there is the threat of casu­al, short-term over­seas labour being intro­duced to the port once New Zealand signs up to the free trade deal with Chi­na.

“We are extreme­ly con­cerned that a glob­al oper­a­tor like this, based in Hong Kong, will find a way to intro­duce over­seas labour through the free trade agree­ments.”

The Unions say their con­cerns are wide­spread in the wider mar­itime indus­try.

The two Unions are propos­ing that the Christchurch City Coun­cil through its busi­ness arm CCHL pur­chase the Port of Lyt­tel­ton out­right.

This would keep own­er­ship, con­trol and rev­enue with the local com­mu­ni­ty and the peo­ple of New Zealand.