Board rejects plans

Press, 27 June 1986, Page 3

Board rejects plans

PA Wellington The Wellington Harbour Board has rejected plans to become a public company. The board, at its monthly meeting on Wednesday, considered proposals from a special board committee. If adopted, they would have begun turning the board into a company with limited Government shareholding. Instead, the board approved a motion by a

board member, Mr Keith Spry, that the board receive the company report, that it seek legislation giving it commercial autonomy, that it be able to enter into port activities such as stevedoring, and that the board lobby for the establishment of a single waterside union.

Board members criticised the original company report, saying the committee went outside its brief.

The board’s general manager, Mr Frank

Baldwin, said in defence of the company report that it would “break the shackles” of the Harbours Act. It was impossible for harbour boards to be commercial enterprises under present legislation.

“This is a chance for Wellington to remain at the forefront of harbour legislation,” said the chairman of the committee that, prepared the company report, Mr John Mooney, after Mr Spry’s motion was carried.