Where does Minister of Transport Steven Joyce stand in regional ports furore?

The Mar­itime Union is ask­ing where the Gov­ern­ment and the Min­is­ter of Trans­port stands on the future of region­al ports after Fonter­ra announced it was with­draw­ing from some region­al ports in favour of trans­port­ing goods by long dis­tance rail last month.

Jobs are under threat, casu­al­iza­tion is hit­ting work­ers hard, and the via­bil­i­ty of region­al ports is under a cloud after the deci­sion, which has cre­at­ed intense debate in the regions and the trans­port indus­try.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the union’s nation­al exec­u­tive met with a Fonter­ra rep­re­sen­ta­tive ear­li­er this week.

He says the meet­ing was a use­ful ini­tial step but none of the issues had been resolved.

“We want to see Fonter­ra reg­is­ter­ing the fact they have a social respon­si­bil­i­ty to the com­mu­ni­ties they work with, not just a nar­row focus on short term ben­e­fits for their share­hold­ers.”

How­ev­er he says the Gov­ern­ment seems to have “turned on the auto pilot and left the bridge.”

Mr Han­son says that no sat­is­fac­to­ry response has been forth­com­ing about the impact of Gov­ern­ment invest­ment in rail and how this could influ­ence pric­ing, but ques­tions were con­tin­u­ing to be asked through­out the indus­try.

“The Mar­itime Union sup­ports pub­lic invest­ment in rail, but if ports and coastal ship­ping are not receiv­ing the same pub­lic invest­ment, then this can­not lead to the most effec­tive solu­tion.”

Mr Han­son says there has to be a co-ordi­nat­ed nation­al strat­e­gy for ports and trans­port where Fonter­ra had a role but was not able to dom­i­nate for their own ben­e­fit.

He says the lack of response from the Trans­port Min­is­ter is a con­cern as it appears the Gov­ern­ment had “gone to sleep” on a major issue in the regions and the heart­land New Zealand com­mu­ni­ties it elec­tion­eered on.

“This is big­ger than Fonter­ra. We are talk­ing about the future of trans­port in New Zealand and if we leave it up to the biggest play­er to call the shots, then the result will not be a good one.”

The Mar­itime Union is press­ing for “social respon­si­bil­i­ty” from Fonter­ra and a nation­al trans­port strat­e­gy that works for the regions fol­low­ing the meet­ing between the union and the dairy giant.

Mr Han­son says that appears some progress has been made in Port Tarana­ki with extra work being found for the port by Fonter­ra, which would lessen the impact of its sud­den switch to a long dis­tance rail option.

He says that it is imper­a­tive that sim­i­lar arrange­ments be made with the Port of Timaru, where job loss­es and the casu­al­iza­tion of the work­force are occur­ring, with the port reel­ing from the loss of more than half of its con­tain­er traf­fic.

The fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion was passed this week at the nation­al exec­u­tive meet­ing of the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand in Welling­ton:

“The Mar­itime Union nation­al exec­u­tive reg­is­ters its con­cerns at the actions of Fonter­ra in its arbi­trary deci­sion to stop ship­ments through Timaru and Tarana­ki and also the effect this will have on all the oth­er ports”

“The Union will con­tin­ue to cam­paign for a full and prop­er dis­cus­sion among all stake­hold­ers includ­ing ports, mar­itime work­ers, farm­ers, region­al busi­ness, local gov­ern­ment and nation­al gov­ern­ment to ensure that region­al ports are not dis­ad­van­taged by Fonter­ra’s deci­sions.”

“Fur­ther more the uni­lat­er­al move to bypass the envi­ron­men­tal and com­mer­cial­ly viable option of coastal ship­ping, is of fur­ther con­cern espe­cial­ly when New Zealand’s car­bon foot­print is of real con­cern in the future of NZ exports.”

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand was formed in 2003 and rep­re­sents water­front work­ers, sea­far­ers and relat­ed work­ers through­out New Zealand.