the exporters. Union strikes did not affect most Pacific Island carriers because they operate from Auckland’s general wharves, but PFL’s Henning Hansen says goods transferred through the container terminal were sometimes delayed. Maersk ships continued to call at Auckland to deliver imports as the port asked, though with reduced port services, Bevis says. Producers had to take their exports elsewhere. The strikes resulted in record volumes being handled at the Port of Tauranga, which is not good for New Zealand, says Mark Cairns. “New Zealand needs all its ports functioning as best we can because we are so far from export markets.” The usual seven-day free export storage space was temporarily reduced to five days at Tauranga until the doubled container volume eased back. “The Employment Relations Act needs to deal with this, rather than that we have latent capacity to deal with it again,” he says. The Port of Lyttleton also
experienced significant delays and schedule changes as a result of the Auckland strikes. And, right through the crisis, the supply of empty containers was building up in Auckland. QBE Insurance’s Graeme Orchard says exporters and importers can recover any additional costs in storage and local transit under marine cargo insurance policies with a “Strikes Diversion” expenses cover extension. Desperate measures Pacifica Shipping’s Steve Chapman says its ships could only discharge and not pick up during the dispute, so it couldn’t ‘get under the cranes’. It got to the point where, he says, “We are working at the general wharves with a shore mobile crane that is used for building warehouses and apartments, not a specialised container crane. It’s as slow as a wet week but we are willing to spend the time there because the supply chain is fast grinding to a halt.” Truck companies added a surcharge for waiting at the wharves. Rail
eventually had no capacity to move freight out of Auckland and road was so expensive exporters didn’t want to use it, says Chapman. Pacifica’s calls went from weekly to fortnightly into Auckland via the conventional wharves, adding huge additional costs in exchanging cargo, which caused Pacifica to add a surcharge for the duration of the dispute. “Imports will be more expensive because importers are paying for goods to be transhipped to Auckland, and we will see shortages on supermarket shelves. “It just shows how important Auckland port is for imports and export markets. See what happens when it goes down; the rest of the supply chain cannot handle it well,” Chapman says.
MARY MACKINVEN / WRITER
Mary MacKinven is an Auckland-based business writer. Email marymackinven@orcon.net.nz
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