Board Wants Figures On Meat-Loading Ports

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31498, 12 October 1967, Page 9

Board Wants Figures On Meat-Loading Ports

The Lyttelton Harbour Board wants facts and figures from the shipping companies and the Meat Producers’ Board to prove their contention that the use of Timaru and Bluff for South Island frozen meat shipments to Britain is in the interest of the country.

After a deputation to the Meat Board had been discussed by the board yesterday, it was agreed to invite Mr C. Hilgendorf, deputy - chairman of the Meat Board, to the next meeting of the works committee. "This Is one of the blackest clouds that has come over this port for many a long day,” said Mr W. B. Laing. “The board must give very serious consideration to it and make a very strong protest”

The public was inclined to blame the board for not putting in meat loaders, he said. On the advice of the Transport Commission the board had not gone ahead with plans to install loaders. For the 5 per cent of time lost by bad weather the expendi-. ture of 81,000,000 was not justified, the commission had said.

“We can’t order the shipping companies where they will send their ships,” said

the chairman (Mr L. G. Amos). “We can’t tell a freezing company where it is going to send its meat. We are not in a very strong-position. “Fighting Back” “However, I am fighting back. We are not taking it lying down. Board members should give mature consideration to this before we discuss it. We can’t just blow our top off. We must give specific and definite reasons why Lyttelton should be used.”

The board had spent $12,000,000 or $14,000,000 to get the ships trading at Lyttelton, and had been encouraged by the shipping companies to provide the new wharves and equipment, he said.

The change would cost the board about $22,000 a year, and would mean a readjustment of labour.

Mr Laing: The workers are going to suffer. Mr Amos said it would be better to put the matter on the order paper for debate at the next meeting. In the meanwhile he proposed to seek an interview with Sir John Ormond, chairman of

the Meat Board, to get some facts.

“The shipping companies and the Meat Board have arrived at their decision and have said it is for the benefit of the whole country,” Mr B. G. Barclay said. “If that is so, then I am in favour of it, but we want facts to support their decision.”

He favoured a deputation fo the Meat Board, but Mr J. Brand said from what he had heard he did not tbink a deputation would get anywhere, but Mr Hilgendorf was a Canterbury man and could be invited to the board to give reasons.

There would be an exercise on meat loading of the Adelaide Star at the end of the month, and he hoped it would prove that meat could be handled expeditiously and economically at the port, Mr Amos said. “Some time ago we lost timber to Timaru, now we are losing mutton,” Mr W. P. Glue said. “If this goes on we will have' to seek rating authority or increase the harbour improvement rate to cover our charges.”

There had been more than one meeting with the freezing companies and they had been asked for any faults at Lyttelton, Mr J. E. Mannering said. They had found none, other than one or two minor matters that had been attended to, and were happy with the way meat was handled.