KEY POINTS:
Talk about a lover spurned. Last July, after a drawn-out courtship, Auckland Regional Holdings rejected Port of Tauranga's bid to "merge" with Ports of Auckland, ARH's main asset.
Part-privatised Port of Tauranga offered a three-way deal, with ARH, Bay of Plenty Regional Council and private shareholders.
To the Aucklanders, it seemed suspiciously like one of those insect world marriages where, at the moment of consummation, the suitor bites the head off her luckless partner, devouring the remains at her leisure.
Ever since, the thwarted yokels have taken the rejection hard, not losing an opportunity to badmouth the big city catch that got away.
Now it's got to the stalking stage, with Port of Tauranga making an inflammatory submission to, of all bodies, the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. I kid you not.
The submission alleges its rival is in financial trouble and that the Minister for Transport should step in and sort it out. For good measure, it adds that the law should be changed to force its Auckland rival to sell off 49 per cent of its shares to private capitalists.
Presumably the author's dream is that partial privatisation will give the private shareholders of Port of Tauranga another chance to get their hooks into Auckland's priceless waterfront. As for the gratuitous blackening of Ports of Auckland's reputation, perhaps they see this as a way of devaluing the company's share price in the unlikely event their wish came true.
Of course, with a change of government a good possibility by year's end, you have to wonder what brought on this rush of blood about privatisation. Talk about rust never sleeping. I look forward to a reassurance from National leader John Key that adds community-owned assets such as the port company to his rahui on privatisation of public assets in his first term.
But what a cheek of these outsiders to use the royal commission to tell Aucklanders what is best for Auckland, when what they're really plugging is a forced sell-off of Auckland assets.
Back in 2005, when ARH returned the port company to full public ownership by buying the 20 per cent of shares held privately, what appealed most to me was that it ensured control of the downtown waterfront was returned to the public. At least, if we or later generations cocked the development of our front door up, we would have only ourselves to blame.
In his submission, Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns admits that none of the country's ports are honouring section 5 of the Port Companies Act which requires "the principal objective of every port company shall be to operate as a successful business".
He says: "Most ports [are] not achieving their current cost of capital, with some even having returns as low as 2 per cent."
But it's only his Auckland rival he singles out for criticism, using information, it seems, he acquired during the failed merger talks.
He then thunders: "If a port company is simply ignoring its statutory principal objective to be a successful business, and its shareholders do not care ... one is left with the situation where the minister must initiate some examination unless she is content for the law to be ignored."
He adds that "a stronger option" would be "a legislative amendment requiring a partial privatisation of each port company" which would leave just 51 per cent of voting shares in public hands.
Both ARH chairwoman Judith Bassett and chief executive Peter Casey are overseas, but deputy chairwoman Joce Jesson says that, as shareholder, ARH is happy with the state of its investment portfolio, including the performance of the port company, which, she says, has been told to plan for the long term, rather than for day-to-day returns.
She is incredulous at the proposal to call in the minister.
"It sounds like they're calling for a national port commission to run the ports. Goodness me. I'm sure Mark Cairns doesn't mean that."
Regional council chairman Mike Lee was less sanguine. Annoyed by "this continual attempted sabotage of Ports of Auckland's reputation", he advised Port of Tauranga shareholders that if they've been told they're going to end up controlling Ports of Auckland, to forget it.
"If your shareholding is based on that motive, you've been misled. It's not for sale. Auckland people will not tolerate that."
