Marsden sitting resumption

Press, 2 January 1985, Page 4

Marsden sitting resumption

PA Wellington The one-man committee of inquiry into industrial relations at the Marsden Point oil refinery expansion site will resume sittings in Auckland on January 11. Dr Martyn Finlay, Q.C. appointed by the Government to conduct the inquiry, said the January 11 sitting would be a further opportunity for parties to register their interest and be represented at the inquiry. Dr Finlay has already held two procedural sittings but he said in each case that the notice was short and the timing poor, just before Christmas. He hoped he could start hearing the actual submissions on Wednesday, Janu-

ary 16. He would then sit from Monday to Thursday of the following weeks for as long as the inquiry took. “It will be just as short as I can make it, giving all parties adequate time to present their cases.” Dr Finlay said the more protracted the inquiry, the less successful it was likely to be in reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Sittings will be held at the Labour Department in Auckland. So far parties which have registered their interest are the Marsden Refinery Consortium, the New Zealand Refining Company, McConnell Dowell, the storemen and packers, labourers, and engineers’ unions and the Federation of Labour.