While the country is in limbo waiting to see who Winston Peters will negotiate with to form the next government, we look at some of the scenarios that could play out.
Under a coalition on the Left, embracing both Labour and the Greens, are we are likely to see a major push to reduce the numbers of trucks hauling freight with upgraded rail infrastructure?
Will we see the Greens’ Julie-Ann Genter as the Minister of Transport? If NZ First are also part of a centre-left coalition, who will dictate the policies?
Would we see more coastal shipping and associated port infrastructure investment, with the Ports of Auckland closing and a move to Northport at Marsden Point or Mt Maunganui – or even a new port in the Firth of Thames?
If Auckland’s port operations were moved to Northport, the road and rail infrastructure would need urgent upgrading.
Chris Carr of Carr & Haslam is already on record as saying, “If all the cars came into Northport we will see a car transporter on State Highway 1 every 2½ minutes”.
The recent pipeline outage has already given us a taste of this.
After seeing between 20 and 30 fuel tankers between Auckland and Waipu on a recent trip, and another 15 on the road between Auckland and Wellsford a week earlier, I have concerns for road safety on already overloaded infrastructure.
The habits of a lot of motorists when confronted by large truck and trailer combinations leave a lot to be desired.
New Zealand motorists are not the best at adhering to our driving rules and moving left after overtaking on multi-lane roads.
Driver frustration increases when they are unable to pass an obstruction in their journey, leading to poor judgement calls and inappropriate overtaking attempts.
Sadly, that too often results in deaths and major trauma.
On the other hand, we have the possibility of a coalition between NZ First and National.
We know Winston Peters has already weighed into the ports debate – that might well have been to gain Northland votes as having Auckland’s port work move to Northport would reduce unemployment in Northland and stimulate the local economy tremendously.
There would need to be major investment in road and rail infrastructure between Auckland and Whangarei to make that a viable option and at what cost?
We know the infrastructure alone would cost billions of dollars and that is only the start.
What would the increased cost of another movement of freight add to the cost to consumers when, on average, 80% of all imports are destined for the Auckland market?
Take cars as an example: with around 150,000 used cars and 120,000 new being imported annually and the Auckland fleet growing by 800 a week, what would the cost increase to consumers be?
If we say it costs $250 to transport a car from Northport to Auckland, that amounts to $200,000 a week or $10.4 million.
Cars make up only a small proportion of the freight so we could see increases in costs of hundreds of millions – even billions.
Would the costs of moving the port be justified? And if not, how long can the status quo continue?
How does Ports of Auckland plan to cater for growth in a finite space with little public appetite to extend their current footprint in downtown Auckland?
Those are some of the issues that have been on the table for a while now and the pressure to provide direction will be on whichever coalition takes the reins.
