Withdrawal of proposed service threatens coastal shipping progress

The Mari­time Uni­on is con­cerned coastal ship­ping pro­gress is stalling after the can­cel­la­tion of a pro­posed new ship­ping ser­vice link­ing region­al New Zea­l­and ports.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the can­cel­la­tion of a pro­posed MOVE Logist­ics roll-on-roll-off (RoRo) ship due to tech­nic­al issues was a step back­ward for New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping.

MOVE Logist­ics had planned to use a $10 mil­lion co-invest­ment from Waka Kotahi to build a new meth­an­ol-cap­able ves­sel which could ser­vice region­al New Zea­l­and ports in both islands.

Mr Har­ris­on says New Zea­l­and des­per­ately needs to devel­op coastal ship­ping capa­city in the region­al sup­ply chain.

“New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping provides redund­ancy and resi­li­ence in our sup­ply chain in a volat­ile glob­al envir­on­ment.”

Mr Har­ris­on said there had been hard les­sons about the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of our trans­port sys­tem in recent years and the import­ance of the ‘blue high­way’ of coastal ship­ping.

“What happened dur­ing COVID was that inter­na­tion­al ship­ping dis­rup­tion put our entire sup­ply chain in jeop­ardy. This could eas­ily hap­pen again with anoth­er pan­dem­ic or war.”

Anoth­er threat was land trans­port links being dis­rup­ted by cli­mate change weath­er events, such as Cyc­lone Gab­ri­elle, or earth­quakes, both of which had taken out road and rail links.

In both cases, New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping offered redund­ancy in the sys­tem and provided an essen­tial role, he says.

Mr Har­ris­on says a nar­row focus on road­ing by the new Gov­ern­ment would increase depend­ency on vul­ner­able land based motor­way links.

“It’s going to be a very expens­ive exer­cise to find those motor­ways out of action if we have not got our coastal ship­ping cap­ab­il­ity in place.”

Under the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment, former Min­is­ter of Trans­port Michael Wood announced $30 mil­lion fund­ing between four New Zea­l­and oper­at­ors to help each com­pany bring at least one extra coastal ves­sel into ser­vice.

Mr Har­ris­on says as a res­ult of this, sev­er­al new coastal ship­ping ser­vices were up and run­ning or in the pro­cess of com­ing online. 

How­ever, oth­er ser­vices had been lost.

In March 2023 the short lived New Zea­l­and ‘Coastal Con­nect’ domest­ic ser­vice was pulled after less than a year by Maersk.

New Zea­l­and fuel tankers that con­nec­ted the Marsden Point refinery with fuel depots in New Zea­l­and ports had been taken off the coast in 2022 fol­low­ing the clos­ure of the refinery by its own­er.

“It is essen­tial the cur­rent mod­est growth we have seen in New Zea­l­and coastal ship­ping does not stall.”