A container vessel hoves into Ports of Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
A container vessel hoves into Ports of Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
OPINION
The Ports of Auckland continues to be in the headlines despite a major turnaround in the last year, with improvements in all areas of operation.
Ports everywhere are political footballs. Everyone is an expert. Ports of Auckland is in an especially difficult position as it moves on from alost decade of poor leadership. Its role is coming under great scrutiny.
There is a range of legitimate views about the future of the Ports of Auckland and how it operates. We have heard recently how port operations should be effectively phased out in favour of other uses for the waterfront. What we need to hear now is the details of how this works in practice.
Imported cars lined up at the Ports of Auckland on the Captain Cook Wharf in front of Queens Wharf. Photo / Jason Oxenham, File
One push at the moment is to end car imports at Ports of Auckland. Currently, over 240,000 imported cars come across the wharf annually. These cars don’t hang around – within a couple of days coming off the ship they are heading out of the port.
Relocating this operation is not straightforward. The cars have to be brought into the country somewhere, and if not Auckland, then where? Port of Tauranga is mired in legal issues around expansion for its current operations. Northport at Marsden Point is the other existing port in the region. But a rail link to Northport doesn’t exist – it is still at the concept stage.
Consider then how 240,000 cars per annum could leave Northport. The only option will be by truck, a handful of cars at a time, travelling 150 kilometres south to Auckland through some of the heaviest traffic in the country.
The added cost, emissions, congestion and safety risks will be enormous. It would move us in the exact opposite direction we need to be going in. It is not obvious these implications have been thought through.
There are ongoing theories about new ports being built on the Manukau Harbour or the Firth of Thames. Putting aside the technical challenges, projects like this would take decades to plan, consent and build, at vast cost.
Thanks to a generation of short-sighted free market ideology, we allowed rail and coastal shipping to be run down. Long overdue investment is now taking place. We have witnessed an unprecedented turnaround in New Zealand coastal shipping in 2022, but there is a long way to go.
We can’t put the cart before the horse – alternative infrastructure has to be there before we start winding back or messing with current port operations.
Craig Harrison. Photo / Supplied, File
What we have dealt with in all New Zealand ports over the last couple of years is a major disruption. The effects of Covid on international shipping schedules were bad enough, but it also revealed serious weaknesses in our supply chain model.
A major conceptual problem around ports is how they are seen primarily as cash cows for their owners. Yet the real value of ports is their utility for the productive economy. Without efficient, well-connected ports, five-star hotel developments and waterfront parks don’t happen. Very little does.
The last two years of port congestion and disruption should have driven this point home. The delays and costs are still having an impact on the economy. More volatility is the last thing we need.
This is why the current Ports of Auckland debate is counterproductive. We can’t just see a port as a local problem, or even a local asset. For a remote, maritime nation with an export-driven economy, our ports are front and centre of all of our futures.
The Maritime Union is happy for a robust debate about ports, in Auckland and elsewhere. But this can’t be driven by parochial considerations. There needs to be a national ports strategy for the long term – decades into the future – where infrastructure is planned and part of an integrated, future-proofed logistics framework, with input from all sectors, national and local Government, iwi, unions, and local communities.
The Maritime Union certainly wants to engage constructively with the port owners and will provide valuable input from the port workforce.
The demands on our ports will be greater than ever in the future. We need them to operate in a safe and productive way, reduce their environmental footprint, and integrate them with low-emission transport modes.
The issue is bigger than Ports of Auckland. But Ports of Auckland will be part of the solution. Until clear, practical alternatives is in place, there should not be any hasty moves to undermine its role in our collective prosperity.
Craig Harrison is the National Secretary of the Maritime Union of New Zealand.
