Andrew Dickens: For a trading nation, the Port of Auckland drama is inexcusable

It’s fair to say I’ve been seething for the past few days since the news that Ports of Auckland’s automation experiment has crashed and burned.
This was a story that we knew was happening and yet the people at the centre of it refused to admit it.
Time and time again the media and the council put questions to the management of the Port.
Time and time again we were told there was no problem and the tone was that we didn’t know what we were talking about so leave us alone.
Well it turns out the Ports didn’t know their own business or what they were talking about and the whole country has paid a price.
The automation project was cutting edge. It was not best practice. It was a mightily huge experiment that has cost us dearly.
The reports we’ve heard is that the scrapping of it will cost $65 million. That’s just the cost of the useless software that we can’t even re-sell.
The cost of this screw up is in the billions. 
The snarling of our major port.  The self-inflicted supply chain difficulties in the time of pandemic caused supply chain difficulties.
We can all see that the value of the port has declined particularly if compared to the Port of Tauranga.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg.
Every single importer and exporter and transport firm affected by a non-functioning port. 
Every single trader dependent of the arrival of a container that never came. All hit.
For a trader nation to have its biggest port hobbled in this way for so long is inexcusable.
But also inexcusable was its failure to realise the folly of its actions earlier.
I applaud the new management for seeing the obvious.
But I deplore the former management who felt that their actions were not reviewable by their owners: the people of Auckland.
The structure of the Port company was designed to keep politicians’ hands off a business enterprise and yet it seems in the absence of direct accountability the business people went off piste. 
It is a remarkable arrogance.

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