Ports of Auckland health and safety report must be released 

The Mar­itime Union says the fail­ure to prompt­ly take steps to enable the pub­lic release of a health and safe­ty report at Ports of Auck­land should be the final straw for the Auck­land Coun­cil.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says the report has been com­plet­ed but the release of the report is being delayed to pro­tect port man­age­ment.

A draft inde­pen­dent report that was com­mis­sioned by the May­or of Auck­land is still being checked by POAL lawyers.

May­or Phil Goff has told Board and Man­age­ment the time being tak­en by POAL to pro­vide feed­back “is unrea­son­ably delay­ing the final­i­sa­tion of the report” – and thus delay­ing POAL tak­ing pos­i­tive steps to address the find­ings of the report.

Mr Har­ri­son says he does not know what com­pa­ny lawyers have to add to a report com­plet­ed by health and safe­ty experts.

“Work­ers have died and been seri­ous­ly injured through pre­ventable acci­dents at the Ports of Auck­land, but POAL man­age­ment is still con­trol­ling the process and fail­ing to be trans­par­ent and account­able.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the Mar­itime Union rep­re­sents the major­i­ty of steve­dores at POAL, and MUNZ mem­bers at the Port want­ed to get the infor­ma­tion from the report as it was their health and safe­ty at risk, not man­age­ment or their legal advis­ers.