Major forum on NZ ports' future essential

Newly elected Doug Owens wants to establish a regional council forum to discuss the future of ports around the country.
"There is a certain amount of inertia," said Mr Owens, a Bay of Plenty regional councillor. "The councils that still own shares in the ports need to get their heads together and have a serious discussion about the big picture. I will be lobbying for this to happen early in the New Year.
"The politicians in Wellington have said they will let the market dictate what happens to the ports. There are the shipping companies to consider. And as a 55 per cent shareholder in Port of Tauranga, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council can take a lead in the ongoing debate about port restructuring."
Mr Owens has spent a lifetime around ports through his father's and his own family's businesses. This involves stevedoring and marshalling, shipping agency, transport and logistics, storage and freight forwarding.
He believes the logical solution to the North Island shipping hub is that Tauranga and Auckland work together and form a two-port container operation - along the lines of what he mentioned to his father, the late Sir Bob Owens, in 1988 when he was chairman of the Bay of Plenty Harbour Board. Doug Owens was a Waitemata member on the Auckland Harbour Board.
Mr Owens doubted the Commerce Commission would allow a merger of the Auckland and Tauranga ports.
"We need to look at a different structure which could be partially shared services with separate ownership and community control. For instance, the two ports could combine their container infrastructure and IT services, and co-operate. Kiwi Rail could be locked into a deal that it can really plan for.
"When logistics is the exercise, a joint venture linking the container businesses of both ports could have some legs."
Mr Owens said this idea was recently been pre-empted by Ports of Auckland offering to buy Tauranga's container business, "so obviously Auckland can already see a benefit to them".
He said the ports to some extent were irrelevant. "It's the ability to deliver product/cargo on time and at the best price. That can be decided on a ship by ship basis by having common systems in place."
Mr Owens, who spent three years on the Auckland Harbour Board, said the efficiencies gained would assist road/rail transport and reel in the cost of the supply chain overall.
He is wary of the Super City structure that is likely to be controlled by the council-controlled organisations (CCOs). "The CCOs have 'boy geniuses' from private enterprise ... they don't want to be accountable to anyone. The CCOs are almost untouchable by the new council - all their assets are controlled by people appointed by the Minister of Local Government.
"There is no referendum available to the people of Auckland. For instance, if the CCO holding the port and airport shares wants to sell them, then it does not have to refer to the people, and the new council would be powerless to stop that.
"In other words, the Minister of Local Government has a good deal of residual interest here, and if the Government pushes ahead with unitary authorities throughout New Zealand, then the minister will have his foot on all regional assets and be able to exert undue influence over them," he said. "This is hardly allowing market forces to reign."
He said the Super City structure squandered Auckland's social equity and set up 20 local boards - not the suggested seven - which had a mandate to do nothing and, as a result, would be a thorn in the council's side. In the meantime the CCOs run the show and democracy will be compromised.
Mr Owens said regional councils did not want assets commandeered. Quayside Holdings, which managed Bay of Plenty Regional Council's shareholding in Port of Tauranga, was a great model.
"It's a trust governed by CCO rules and it's at arm's length to the regional council and the port company. It's a pure investment vehicle and is the envy of other regions.
"The asset in the port has grown from $40 million to about $450 million through sound management.
"That's just good capitalism. You have to hold on to your assets. You can't live off rates forever and councils have to build up their equity."
Bay of Plenty Regional Council now has nearly $1 billion equity, and Mr Owens said "it was incumbent of the council to take a closer look at providing grants for projects such as roads and drainage in the Bay.
"It's in a position to do this ... as long as other councils play their part by putting in debt reduction programmes as part of their long term community plans," he said.