Waters ruffled at Ports of Auckland meeting

By PAUL PANCKHURST

Ports of Auckland's failure to do a deal with Tranz Rail for a much-vaunted inland port at Palmerston North came under the spotlight at a lively annual meeting at the Hilton Hotel on Princes Wharf yesterday.

Shareholder activist Oliver Saint quizzed the port company's chairman, Neville Darrow, on whether the sticking point was price or Tranz Rail's ability to perform.

"I believe Tranz Rail can perform," said Darrow.

"We have not reached a commercial agreement as to how that performance might be delivered."

Translation: it is the price.

Darrow said discussions with the rail operator were "ongoing" - which is exactly what the port company was saying in July last year, a month after the joint venture was supposed to have kicked-off.

Originally, when it announced the plan, the port company said a daily return rail service would attract more export containers from the lower and central North Island for shipping out of Auckland.

Also raised by shareholders at yesterday's meeting: the size of the print in the annual report, a query over the independence of the company's auditors, and the problem of the hundreds of objections generated by plans to develop waterfront property owned by the company.

There was also that hardy perennial: the cost of the annual report.

No one was going to catch Darrow out on that one.

Instantly reeling off the figures - it cost $14,000, there were 10,500 copies, that was $13.30 a copy - he said the report also doubled as a promotional document.

Two announcements at the meeting: a delay of up to a year in the dredging of the commercial shipping lane in the Rangitoto Channel, and the settlement on October 1 of the purchase of an inland port site in Wiri.