The Auckland Business Chamber is backing calls to improve freight movement at border checkpoints during Auckland’s level 3 restrictions.
It says “unnecessary and unacceptable delays” are happening, disrupting freight access to workplaces and essential supplies to and from Auckland.
“Checkpoints at the Bombay Hills between the border of Auckland and Waikato are preventing workers getting to market gardens to plant and other businesses because they haven’t got the ‘paperwork’,” chief executive Michael Barnett says.
He says “truckers are being delayed for hours at port control and testing centres adding cost and undue delay to the transport of essential goods going north and south”.
“Surely common sense could prevail, and a simple process implemented to get goods and people going to work moving rather than demanding documentation and special exemptions.
“No one is advocating breaching the borders, but the least authorities could do is communicate what is required to keep our supply chains feeding us with an easy protocol for these critical workers,” Barnett says.
The Road Transport Forum (RTF) has worked to get a designated slip lane for trucks moving through the Auckland border to keep freight moving during level 3.
RTF chief executive Nick Leggett says “it’s a balancing act to try and get what we want in the midst of all the other demands”.
“The police have been very helpful. But they have also pointed out that there are social media forums where truck drivers are offering to guide people in and out of Auckland by avoiding the checkpoints, or pick up passengers on back routes and take them across the border.
“This behaviour is very damaging to the trucking industry and to the work we are trying to do to get better access for trucks through checkpoints.
“If people don’t play by the rules, then the police will have to consider stopping trucks.
“I would urge all employers to speak to their drivers and to check social media and stop this commentary where they can. It helps no one. This is a deadly virus and we must do everything we can to keep it at controllable levels,” Leggett says.
