James Meager: Associate Minister of Transport blocks cement supplier's coastal shipping

The country's largest cement supplier says we'll soon have over 500 more trucks on the road every month to move cement across the country. 

They recently requested to use a foreign-flagged vessel with foreign crew to operate for three years while a new vessel was built to replace their outdated M-V Buffalo. 

But this request was declined by the Associate Transport Minister, James Meager. 

He told Ryan Bridge that, "you tend to only give authorizations to carry things for a very short or temporary period, to make up a bit of a gap. And in this instance, it just didn't meet that criteria."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, the country's largest cement supplier says that we
will soon have five hundred extra heavy trucks on the
roads every month, basically cuting cement around. It was going
by sea, Holson the name of the business. They wanted
to use a foreign flagged vessel with foreign crew to
operate for three years while they sought a new vessel

(00:21):
out because the old one that they were using, the
MV Buffalo, well that's basically sick it. It's end of
life stuff. The problem with all of this is the
Minister has denied it. The Associate Transport Minister, James Mega
denied this request and the Minister is with me now. Minister,
good to have you on the program tonight. What's the
reason for doing this? I understand Holson is now having

(00:44):
to move everything on the road.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, it's pretty tight criteria under the Maritime Act. Essentially,
you've got to be satisfied that there's no other ship
available to carry the coastal cargo. And yes, I was
satisfied of that there was no other ship available. But
then you've also got to be satisfied that what Nova
wanted to do meets the intent of the Act and
the intent of the Act is actually to restrict coastal

(01:10):
shipping to basically New Zealand vessels unless you give that authorization,
and you tend to only give authorizations to carry things
for a very short or temporary period to make up
a bit of a gap. In this instance, it just
didn't make that criteria.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay, I understand that. But you could change the little
couldn't you. But you could make an exemption to it.
I mean, because they're basically saying they're going to have
to put five hundred trucks of cement a month on
the roads, and we know our roads aren't great, and
that when it comes time to go back to the
coastal shipping in three years, well actually they may not
want to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah. Look, I hear those arguments, and I know they've
made those arguments publicly, but they weren't part of what
I had to consider as part of the statute. The
statute's relatively narrow, and ministers can't go outside what's relevant
or not relevant when they're making that decision. So I
know there are lots of arguments around jobs and around
how you might have to shift the cement on the road,

(02:05):
But I had to make the decision based on the
statute and that's fair. Fair.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So now that you do know that information, what are
you going to do with it?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well, there's no plans to amend the statute at this point.
You know, it's always possible that people can write to
me and make the case that amendment could be made,
But we've got to look at what the purpose of
the statute is. Coastal shipping in New Zealand is primarily
a domestic activity. We do have international shipping companies come
in here bringing cargo from overseas in but we tend

(02:35):
to have coastal shipping to be something that is done
by New Zealand ships or with New Zealand based crews,
and that's been the case for quite a long time.
It'd be quite a big change to open that up
to international vessels operating under international law, which has different
workplace laws and pay laws and health and safety laws
to what we have here in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, but I totally understand that. But if the net
result of your action is three years there's no coastal
shipping for these fifteen thousand tons of cement, then that
would be a big negative, a big cross against the decision, right,
So are you going to be practical about it or
do you think these guys are just crying well for publicity.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I guess the flip side to that argument would be,
what about the other coastal shipping companies that do run
New Zealand vessels. If there is no longer a requirement
to have New Zealand feed vessels or New Zealand crews,
they may well then be incentivised in order to compete
with foreign vessels to have their own foreign vessels in here,
and then all of a sudden the entire coastal shipping
network falls to bits. So ultimately, that's something that we

(03:39):
have to consider when we're making these decisions. There are
people out there who advocate for change, but it's not
something that we've considered in this case. And you know,
you've got to think about the long term viability of
coastal shipping in New Zealand and New Zealand sea fearers.
That's got to be part of the consideration.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
All right. Have you had conversations with Winston Peters about it?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Not do really with mister Peters, but I know that
mister Jones has made his views quite clear on these
kinds of issues and we take our coalition colleagues concerns
very seriously and it actually we work quite well. So
that's probably I think pretty few to say.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
All right, Minister willieve it. They appreciate your time tonight,
James Omega, who's the Associate Transport Minister.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
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Speaker 1 (04:24):
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