Imported used vehicles may soon disappear from the Ports of Auckland now that Phil Goff is the Auckland mayor elect, with over 179,000 votes for a majority of around 74,000 votes.
The former leader of the opposition and the Labour Party told Auto Media Group in July that he is also vehemently against further harbour reclamation by the council-owned port company.
Goff made it clear he wanted the port gone — which is a step beyond the recommendations from the Port Future Study that was released in July 2016.
“This is the most valuable land not only in Auckland, but the whole of New Zealand, and we’re using it as a car park, it’s dumb,” Goff says.
In July, Goff said the best way to address impending capacity constraints on bulk cargo in the short term on the Port of Auckland would be to move imported used vehicles to Northport.
According to Goff, the crux of a report from Ernst Young acknowledges constraints on bulk cargo on the Ports of Auckland in its current location starting to bite in three to 10 years, and for container freight anything between 24 and 40 years, depending on load growth projections at that time.
“We can deal in the short term with the bulk cargo, I think firstly by moving the used-car component of the bulk cargo, probably to Northport,” Goff says.
“Can we move the port? Every other major city in Australia which has undertaken such a move has been able to do it.”
He says; “Darling Harbour in Sydney is not full of containers any more, they’ve moved to Botany Bay, Melbourne, and Brisbane also moved their ports as did Vancouver and London, it makes sense to do that.
“So my belief is we deal first with the significant and impending constraint of the bulk freight issue,” he says.
“If you got those vehicles loaded in at North Port, it would take the pressure off the Ports of Auckland,” he says. “You’d start with used cars first, and then maybe new ones later.”
Goff says, “Then we do a proper investigation of the viability of alternative sites for a Port of Auckland, involving both the economic cost and the economic advantages of relocation, plus the environmental sensitivities and the Iwi sensitivities that will be associated with that.”
