Napier Port stops to mark Worker Memorial Day

Napier Port's numerous cranes are among the risks being managed in a $3.5 million outlay this year to prevent workplace injuries. Photo / NZME

Shipping operations at Napier Port will shut down for up to an hour on Thursday for Hawke's Bay's commemoration of International Worker Memorial Day.

It will be held outside the Seafarers Centre, just south of the port at the northern end of Marine Parade, starting at 10am.

Port CEO Todd Dawson said it's "important for all of us, and that's why we pause operations to give everyone the opportunity to attend every year".

It comes at a time of more calls for port safety inquiries nationwide, after fatalities at the Auckland and Lyttelton ports in the last week.

Napier Port hasn't had a fatality in more than 16 years, but Dawson said: "We can't stress enough that the work done at ports is inherently hazardous, dangerous and something we take extremely seriously and prioritise here.

"It's something we never take our eye off, we're constantly reviewing and it is heavily supported and endorsed from the board/director level all the way through our business," he said. "All our team are involved in our ongoing programmes to reduce risk."

In 2019 Napier Port Co began a three-year "health and safety roadmap" to identify critical risk areas and make the port as safe as possible, he said.

"Critical risk focuses on hazards with the potential to cause serious harm or fatality, both on land and sea," he said, adding that $3.5 million is being spent in the current financial year on "risk controls."

Rail and Maritime Transport Union Hawke's Bay port branch secretary Dave Marden said the goal of the unions and Napier Port Co "is the same in terms of positive outcomes", including union representation on the port health and safety committee.

"There is no room for complacency," he said.

The call for inquiries has been made by the Maritime Union of New Zealand and has been supported by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, general secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges saying: "It's deeply concerning that yet again, a worker has been killed at Ports of Auckland. Clearly, something needs to change in the industry."

Napier Port Co chairman Alastair MacLeod will be among speakers at the commemoration, during which workplace injury victims and those with a connection to someone who has died in such incidents are also encouraged to speak.