Mr Gibson has previously said "at some point we'll need to think about expansion again because Auckland's predicted growth will see to that". He is now making a commitment that after these extensions "there will be no further extensions into the harbour". That would be believable if ports staff and hired legal guns weren't arguing tooth and nail in the Unitary Plan hearings for extension and reclamation rights which extend further out into the Waitemata.
In comparing a 23ha reclamation proposed in 2011 with the 3ha proposed north of Bledisloe, Mr Gibson is comparing apples with oranges. What he fails to mention, to form a more complete picture, is that provisions in the Unitary Plan allow another 20ha reclamation without the necessity of public notification.
There is little logic in Mr Gibson's statements that they have consents only for the Bledisloe Wharf extensions right now, and that that they will pull them out if the stage 2 study finds a better solution.
This is a gung-ho approach to investment and to the Waitemata, and one which the Auckland Council and Auckland Council Investments Limited (ACIL) should neither condone nor allow. Pulling the extensions out is impractical, near impossible and most improbable, especially after the port company has reclaimed between them as it truly plans.
Mr Gibson talks of freight doubling through the multicargo wharves in the past five years, saying "that's the impact of 1.4 million Aucklanders buying things from overseas". However, one has to question whether Auckland's city centre waterfront is the right place to be importing coal, or for that matter exporting iron sand sourced 90km away.
It is surprising, too, that the port company is promoting the development of client warehousing and storage facilities at the port, given that space is in such short supply.
Also worth questioning is the motive behind the proposed expansion. Post the PricewaterhouseCoopers report the company advised that Fergusson would be the main container terminal with Bledisloe being used for multicargo including up to 100,000 containers using only smaller ships. It is now promoting Bledisloe as a "multipurpose" rather than "multicargo" facility that will provide a berth for large container ships.
The change is significant. The company has a track record of applying for changes incrementally and the final end use being different to what was originally proposed.
The port company employs a dubious approach of breaking down and using planning rules bit by bit, avoiding addressing the full range of effects, and not disclosing future plans and consequential requirements.
The company's advertisement headline "passion fuels everything but the facts" carries an arrogant tone. Many questioning the extensions are prominent business people, freight industry leaders, qualified architects and urban planners.
Unwinding its way out of a bad situation, council has written to ACIL who has written to ports. It's a start to halting all works on the Bledisloe extensions. A review of all aspects of the consents and the process by which they were granted is also in order.
As council CEO Stephen Town says, "POAL has not engaged sufficiently with key stakeholders or the public at large in relation to the proposed wharf extensions." The particular circumstances were such that they should have.
Greg McKeown is a former Auckland City councillor.
