Victory for Kiwi jobs as Government rejects foreign cement ship exemption

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand today wel­comed the deci­sion by Asso­ciate Trans­port Min­is­ter James Mea­ger to decline NovaAl­go­ma Cement Car­ri­ers’ (NACC) appli­ca­tion to oper­ate a for­eign-flagged ves­sel car­ry­ing Hol­cim cement on the New Zealand coast.

The failed appli­ca­tion for an exemp­tion under Sec­tion 198 of the Mar­itime Trans­port Act sought per­mis­sion for the Pana­man­ian-flagged and over­seas-crewed NACC Vega to replace the New Zealand-flagged and crewed MV Buf­fa­lo.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Carl Find­lay says the Min­is­ter has made the right deci­sion.

He says the deci­sion con­firms New Zealand law can­not be ignored and side-stepped by multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions seek­ing to destroy local jobs through Flag of Con­ve­nience ship­ping.

“This is a win for local jobs and New Zealand ship­ping.”

Mr Find­lay says the sit­u­a­tion was a clear test on pro­tect­ing Kiwi jobs, and this deci­sion sends a strong mes­sage to Hol­cim about its oblig­a­tions to New Zealand.

In Novem­ber, Hol­cim gave a month’s notice of redun­dan­cy to 32 skilled New Zealand sea­far­ers crew­ing the MV Buf­fa­lo.

Mr Find­lay says Hol­cim must now accept their plan to replace expe­ri­enced New Zealand crews with for­eign labour has failed.

“MUNZ calls on Hol­cim to com­mit to sup­port­ing New Zealand ship­ping and retain­ing local jobs. The high­ly skilled crew of the MV Buf­fa­lo is ready, will­ing, and able to con­tin­ue serv­ing New Zealand’s coastal dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work.”

He says Holcim’s pre­vi­ous threat to use road trans­port for their cement if they didn’t get their way was a non­sense and a bluff.

The Mar­itime Union con­grat­u­lates the crew of the MV Buf­fa­lo for stand­ing strong through­out this pro­tract­ed dis­pute.

Mr Find­lay says the entire episode has high­light­ed the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of New Zealand’s mar­itime trade.

He says the Mar­itime Union is cam­paign­ing on a plan to rebuild New Zealand’s domes­tic coastal ship­ping.

“New Zealand requires a robust and per­ma­nent pol­i­cy frame­work to rebuild a ded­i­cat­ed New Zealand domes­tic coastal ship­ping fleet, crewed by New Zealan­ders, ensur­ing secu­ri­ty and resilience in our sup­ply chains.”

This capa­bil­i­ty proved crit­i­cal dur­ing nation­al crises such as the Christchurch and Kaik?ura earth­quakes and Cyclone Gabrielle, he says.

Mr Find­lay says the Mar­itime Union looked for­ward to an ongo­ing dis­cus­sion about the future of the mar­itime indus­try with Asso­ciate Min­is­ter Mea­ger in the New Year.

Flag of Con­ve­nience (FOC) ship­ping is a reg­u­la­to­ry loop­hole where shipown­ers reg­is­ter ves­sels in for­eign nations (such as Pana­ma or the Cook Islands) rather than their home coun­try, pri­mar­i­ly to max­i­mize prof­it at the expense of safe­ty and work­ers’ rights.

This prac­tice allows own­ers to sev­er the “gen­uine link” between a ship and its actu­al own­er­ship, enabling them to bypass nation­al labour laws, tax oblig­a­tions, and safe­ty stan­dards.

Ship­ping com­pa­nies can effec­tive­ly oper­ate “float­ing sweat­shops,” exploit­ing vul­ner­a­ble crews with pover­ty wages and min­i­mal legal pro­tec­tions, which cre­ates a race to the bot­tom that under­cuts respon­si­ble oper­a­tors.

For New Zealand, the encroach­ment of FOC ship­ping is a direct threat to our eco­nom­ic sov­er­eign­ty, biose­cu­ri­ty, and local jobs.

Multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies use FOC ves­sels to dis­place New Zealand-flagged and crewed ships on domes­tic coastal routes, destroy­ing local jobs and erod­ing our mar­itime capa­bil­i­ty.

Rely­ing on FOC ship­ping com­pro­mis­es sup­ply chain resilience and envi­ron­men­tal safe­ty, as fatigued crews on sub­stan­dard ves­sels sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the risk of mar­itime acci­dents.

Domes­tic coastal freight should be pro­tect­ed by strong laws, ensur­ing it is car­ried by New Zealan­ders on safe, reg­u­lat­ed ves­sels rather than out­sourced to the low­est glob­al bid­der.