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Accumulation of cargo in Auckland ports is becoming a serious safety issue according to truckers, with hundreds of cargo containers being driven long distances to destinations after ships have been forced to dock elsewhere. .
The National Transport Forum says a freighter carrying 1,300 containers must be diverted to NorthPort near Whangārei due to delays at Auckland ports, and all those containers will have to be trucked back to the big city.
Auckland ports have come under fire for major delays in cargo clearance and this week suspended their automated carriers that unload containers after a robot went berserk and crashed.
“You are going to have 1,300 containers bound for Auckland in Whangārei on December 6,” said Forum spokesman Nick Leggett. Control.
“Those will have to move by road, which means probably around 2600 truck movements to and from Auckland to Whangārei. They are poor roads, the railway runs to Whangārei until January 11, so everyone has to travel on the roads. “.
Diversion of the cargo ship to NorthPort is a huge cost, he said.
“Ultimately, it will be the importers who pay because the shipping company has said that it is a force majeure; they could not do anything about it, so the cost falls on the people who own the freight.”
“It costs around $ 120 to move a container from Auckland ports to a destination near Auckland. I know that cost to move a container from NorthPort to Auckland or south could be up to 10 times higher.
“Ultimately, that will fall to consumers. So it’s not just that we can’t get our products, but that they might actually be more expensive.
“And this is the peak season … more people are traveling because they will have to go through the holiday period.
“Twenty foot containers, two of them on a truck usually. This is just one example of where a ship has had to go to NorthPort in Whangārei, because it could not wait to enter the ports of Auckland.
“But the biggest problem for New Zealand is if the next boat doesn’t wait and come back.
“There are imports on that ship, but those ships are also taking our exports. This is critical for New Zealand, we are at the bottom of the world, at the bottom of the supply chain, it is easy to get lost.
“It will create problems for us in terms of road safety, there will probably be fewer trucks in and around Auckland ports for quite some time, but there will be more on State Highway 1 between Whangārei and Auckland and south to Waikato as well.
“This is symptomatic of a major issue and New Zealand needs to control it. So I think blaming a port or shipping line is wrong. We are feeling the effects of a congested … global supply chain that as a result of Covid is under. actual pressure.
“What we have to do as a country, and we have written to the Ministry of Transport … we have to understand where the pressures are and try to anticipate them. That means involving different industries: freight forwarders, ports, road transport, rail and gather them around the table to try to understand where the tight spots are going to be.
“Most of us take for granted that the products arrive to us, we order something online or we go to the supermarket, which is under pressure.
“It doesn’t seem like it has reached the right people in government, and we need this to be taken more seriously,” Leggett said.
Making the railroad work so that empty containers can be returned for export use, and having space available for freight on inter-island ferries would help ease congestion, he said, but industry leaders should also look to the future. future to prepare for peak seasons in the future.
In a statement, a Transport Ministry spokesperson said: “No safety concerns have been raised with the Transport Ministry in relation to the container ship Constantinos P that is scheduled to dock at NorthPort.”
“If either party has a safety concern, they should raise it directly with NorthPort or Worksafe.
“The Ministry of Transport has previously met with the Road Transport Forum (RTF) regarding the current supply chain congestion. We received an email from RTF last night and will speak with them in the near future about the situation of the supply chain and government work in the area. “
