Marsden Point inquiry

Press, 25 September 1984, Page 1

Marsden Point inquiry

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington A three-man Commission of Inquiry into industrial relations at Marsden Point has been set up. It is to report to the Government by December 17 this year. Its appointment, announced by the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, yesterday, honours a Labour Party pre-election pledge. The members are Mr I. M. Mac Kay, a company director, Mr E. J. Batt,, formerly of the State Services Commission; and Mr J. R. Fittes, a- retired industrial relations manager. Mr Mackay will chair the commission. Its terms of reference are

wide and include possible revisions to, or the need for, the Whangarei Refinery Expansion Project Disputes Act passed this year when National was in power. It outlaws picketing on the site and requires that 14 days notice in writing be given of strikes or lock-outs. Under the provisions of the act, the eight unions represented at Marsden Point gave notice two weeks ago that they would down tools today because of concern over worker safety after a number of bomb sc3 The Marsden Refinery Consortium gave them until noon on September 17 to withdraw their threat to strike and said that if they

did not it would seek an injunction in the High Court to stop the action. Mr Palmer was asked yesterday if the Government would intervene in the company’s legal proceedings against the unions. He said they would be allowed to go ahead without interference. “There is no intention to change or in any way affect anyone’s legal right,” he told reporters. He was also asked if the inquiry would review the financial terms negotiated by the National Administration which protect the oil companies against loss by allowing them to pass their original costs and any overruns incurred in New Zealand on to the motorist.

Mr Palmer said these contractual arrangements would come within the commission’s brief only to the extent that they affected industrial relations and that this would depend on the evidence submitted. The unions are likely to insist that there is a connection. The secretary of the Federation of Labour, Mr Ken Douglas, told “The Press” when the disputes bill was before Parliament that the management problems on the site resulted from the “very bad” terms of contract. He said that, because the oil companies’ profits were guaranteed on a cost-plus

basis, they stood to lose nothing through stoppages and therefore had little incentive to erid them. Broadly, the commission has been asked to investigate factors that have soured industrial relations on the project, ways in which they might •be removed or avoided and “any associated matters” that come to its attention. Mr Palmer said he hoped .the exercise would lead to greater on-site harmony and that the lessons learned from the inquiry and from the Marsden Point experience might help in avoiding future disputes on other projects.

The Social Credit leader, Mr Bruce Beetham, said yesterday that he had grave doubts that the commission would produce any useful result. "What started out as a promise from the Labour Party to conduct a full-scale inquiry into Marsden Point has been so severely watered down as to make it virtually a cosmetic exercise,” he said. “The terms of reference could have required a fullblown investigation into all aspects of the refinery construction project including management techniques, supply of materials, design standards, training and subcontracting as well as industrial relations,” he said.