Red Sea situation highlights need for New Zealand shipping

The Mar­itime Union says the con­flict in the Red Sea high­lights the need to build up New Zealand crewed and flagged ship­ping to over­come sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions.

Yemen-based Houthi rebels have been attack­ing mer­chant ships in the Red Sea as the Gaza con­flict threat­ens to spill into a wider region­al con­flict in the Mid­dle East.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says New Zealand needs to build its ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty to pro­vide a buffer for our trans­port links.

He says the pre­vi­ous sev­er­al years saw seri­ous ship­ping dis­rup­tion due to the pan­dem­ic, the Ukraine con­flict, and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters such as the flood­ing in New Zealand regions in 2023.

Mr Har­ri­son says glob­al ship­ping lines are now chang­ing sched­ules to avoid the Suez Canal and Red Sea region, cre­at­ing seri­ous delays and cost hikes.

“New Zealand needs to pro­tect our domes­tic sup­ply chain through boost­ing coastal ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty with New Zealand flagged ships and New Zealand crews.”

Mr Har­ri­son says New Zealand exporters could work togeth­er to char­ter ves­sels for inter­na­tion­al and region­al trade with Gov­ern­ment sup­port. 

Under the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment, fund­ing for coastal ship­ping had result­ed in a mod­est rise in New Zealand flagged ves­sels, and it was impor­tant to keep up the momen­tum, he says. 

Mr Har­ri­son says New Zealand should be strong­ly press­ing for a cease­fire in the Gaza con­flict, which was the under­ly­ing polit­i­cal issue behind the Red Sea sit­u­a­tion.

The recent Red Sea attacks by the Houthis have been aimed at Israel-linked ships in an effort to stop the Israeli offen­sive in Gaza.

The Mar­itime Union is sup­port­ing a call from the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion to ensure the safe­ty of sea­far­ers, which requires the rerout­ing of ves­sels away from the dan­ger zone.