Waterfront reform has strong support: farmer

Press, 8 September 1989, Page 19

Waterfront reform has strong support: farmer

Farmers were determined to pursue long-term reform of the waterfront and shipping sectors, says the junior vice-president of Federated Farmers, Mr Malcolm Lumsden.

Every other industry in New Zealand had been reformed and made to face reality and there was no reason why the waterfront and shipping sectors should hide behind privilege and protection. Mr Lumsden said the federation had received almost total support from a wide cross section of New Zealand industry for the calls for waterfront reform. The future of New Zealand depended on being an effective trading nation able to compete with other countries on world markets, he said during a visit to Christchurch. This involved getting produce across the wharves efficiently. Mr Lumsden said New Zealand Farmers were already the most efficient in the world and future increases in returns for farmers from the world marketplace were limited by commodity prices. “The federation is, therefore, targeting any issue from the farm gate to the marketplace to ensure the farming industry remains competitive.”

This included the waterfront, shipping, internal transport (including diesel tax), and the efficiency of port companies and processing plants. Mr Lumsden said farmers were not targeting watbrsiders as individuals, but rather the structure which had allowed the growth of inefficiency and restrictive work practices. “For too long the system • on the waterfront meant that the people setting the work practices were not incurring the costs. “We want to normalise the work conditions and make them applicable to the modern world.” An example of the downstream benefits of waterfront reform was an estimated 2000 extra jobs in forestry which could be created within 12 months even if there was only minimal savings in the cost of getting sawn timber across tne wharves. Farmers wanted the waterfront to be competitive and have work conditions similar to those

existing in other workplaces. The present dispute on the waterfront was largely a result of the “old guard mentality” in the unions which was resisting the need for change. Mr Lumsden said he did not blame the watersiders for making the best of a deal with soft employers in the past who had allowed the work practices and conditions to develop. “But as a nation we can no longer afford that deal.” Farmers wanted to see a highly-skilled and motivated well-paid workforce on the waterfront to enable New Zealand to compete with other exporters on world markets. Mr Lumsden said Chile had virtually put itself 10,000 km closer to European markets by reforming its waterfront. He emphasised the reform was not centred on wages, but the restrictive work practices and employment conditions which prevented employers from using the workforce to the best advantage.

By deploying the workforce more efficiently, the turnaround time for ships in port could be reduced which could allow cheaper freight rates to be negotiated. Cutting down on the dead time means that goods would be delivered to . the markets quicker and payments be made earlier. Mr Lumsden said the pressure for reform would not stop at the watersiders. The shipping sector and port companies would be next. Competition between ports would help to ensure they were efficient and, if this meant some ports might not survive, that was the price that had to be paid. He sees smaller ports such as Timaru and Tauranga competing with the larger nearby ports of Lyttelton and Auckland repectively. It did not make sense that the cost of shipping containers to Australia was cheaper if they went via Japan and Singapore rather than direct across the Tasman sea. Coastal shipping needed reform also,