MEAT LOADING AT PORTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29367, 21 November 1960, Page 12

MEAT LOADING AT PORTS

Boards To Discuss Mechanisation

(New Zealand Press Association) GISBORE, Nov. 20. The Harbours’ Association will discuss specialised meat loading with trade union representatives, the Meat Board and the Overseas Shipowners’ Committee. This was decided during the final day of the association’s annual conference in Gisborne. The installation of mechanical loading equiprrient will be sought at all ports exporting meat. Similar equipment for loading butter had remained idle at Auckland because the waterfront workers did not like it, said Mr A. C. Clarke, general manager of the Auckland Harbour Board. “And we couldn’t decide who was going to pay what,” he said. “But during the waterfront dispute in 1951, the services used the equipment and it proved successful. Today most of the butter is loaded by conveyor belt.” Mr Clarke said that, at times, there were three to five shipS loading simultaneously in Auckland and the board could not afford specialised equipment for five berths. “It is a matter of everybody getting together and ironing out who pays what.” he said. Mr W. H. Hall (Timaru Harbour Board) said individual boards would have to solve their respective problems. Assistance from the Meat Board would go a long way in the matter. Details of equipment the Southland Harbour Board proposed to install used stainless steel basins instead of fabric conveyor belt material, said Mr E. N. Adams. Loading of sugar at Townsville had increased from 30 tons an hour to 700 tons, with the use of mechanical equipment, said Mr L. E. D. Tomlins, chairman of the Queensland Harbour Boards’ Association. The cost of the equipment, about £1.250,000, would be saved in four years by producers who did not now use bags for the bulk loading and the turn-round of ships had been reduced from 21 days to 30 hours.