Comments on: Move the port(s)

By: Luc Hansen

Luc Hansen — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:27:18 +0000

While I’m on POAL’s side when it comes to having an economically sane labour market, I’m very much against any expansion on their current site.

I suggest you stick to your own backyard on local issues. We like our port, so fuck off.

When it comes to having an economically sane labour market

, if you are saying POAL is all fucked up, just whose fault is that? Are your beloved managers free of blame? Totally? Really?

You still foment willful ignorance. You can’t help yourself, can you!

Here’s a fact for DPF. Please pass this onto to Him.

The most successful economy in Europe appears to be Germany. The average wage rate there is $US44 per hour. Germany has a current account SURPLUS that is HUGE, and DO NOT engage in races to the bottom.

If DPF was running for NZ president this would be his slogan:

For a richer New Zealand, drive down wages!

After all, Newt’s prescription for a richer US is:

Vote for Newt: Getting America’s children back to work

as school toilet cleaners, by the way.

DPF and Newt: blood brothers.

By: Swampy

Swampy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:28:34 +0000

Seaview has a rail link off the Wai line at Woburn, they can easily get freight right onto the rail there. Take it down to Wellington or up through the Wai to Ashhurst then across to Palmy.

By: Johnboy

Johnboy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:34:25 +0000

Sorry old chap. Unfortunately the Wellington water supply pipe and the Wainui sewage pipe currently occupy the old Wainui tunnel. (hope they never the set the valves the wrong way. )

The girls could move to Wainui as they would raise the moral standard of the place.

If the port trade was enough we could drive a tunnel straight through from my place to reids backyard and him and I could come to an arrangement on the sheep and we could just charge the girls a transit fee!

By: mikenmild

mikenmild — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:23:14 +0000

Johnboy
Perhaps the increased demand for sheep would make it worthwhile putting that tunnel through the Wainui hill!

By: Johnboy

Johnboy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:02:44 +0000

Shifting the port of Wellington to the other side would never be a viable proposition.

Taxi fares for the ship girls would be prohibitive, or raise the prices beyond what a poor sailor could afford.

The girls could move to Eastbourne and thus raise property values there, but some who comment here may find this an affront to G-d.

If it happens. We in Wainui, who raise sheep, would of course take it all in our stride and see it as another source of diversifying our income stream by catering to all tastes.

By: Biggreenbugeyedmonster

Biggreenbugeyedmonster — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:41:29 +0000

I’d be really fascinated to know from David where he thinks the “new site” for the port of Auckland should be. The criteria are that it needs to have enough space to berth and turn a post-panmax container ship – so for a start it needs a lot of space and a draft of at least 15m, and the port facilities can handle 5000 containers. Come on David – if you are advocating moving Port of Auckland, then surely you can say where that port should be.
Or is David saying that New Zealand should cut itself off from post-panmax container ships?

By: Paulus

Paulus — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:53:44 +0000

Some obfuscation here on Tauranga’s ability to take over POAL’s role.
Tauranga has as much empty space available as the whole of POAL. Only need to look, not Auckland assume.
It is about to be dredged to take the larger container vessels anticipated within the next 10 + years, and can be dredged further when required.
I have only heard, some 3 months ago, from passengers, from what they were told, for the first time when a very large Cruise Passenger Liner was diverted to Auckland (next port next day anyway) due to adverse storm winds and low tide. The main reason also was the huge high superstucture of the vessel in the adverse storm winds. Sensible decision. This was well over the height of the largest container vessels.

By: BlairM

BlairM — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:24:59 +0000

This is why local and national governments should not own companies.

PoA is sitting on prime real estate. There must be literally thousands of locations to which they could move, then sell the land for a huge profit. A privately owned company would never consider expanding on the current site. It is only council ownership which demands this madness.

PoA should have all ownership transferred to ratepayers in the form of shares, and then there would be no expansion on the current site.

By: SPC

SPC — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:58:22 +0000

A decision on moving the POA to another location is a decision for central government as they would have to fund it and related transportation costs.

Why not a second small scale port, if growth occurs, and the north and Tauranga otherwise.

Wellington’s existing plan for development into a new area is OK.

By: DeepScience

DeepScience — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:50:54 +0000

Hear hear trout, well spoken. And yet Tautaioleua simply replaces the word “view” with “eye sore” and thinks he has demolished your argument despite just affirming it.

By: V

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:03:14 +0000

Heres the rub, in order for the port to be able to afford to move, it needs to be earning sufficient profit at it’s current location in order to fund itself into any new location overtime.

Otherwise it is yet again, another taxpayer bailout.

By: Tautaioleua

Tautaioleua — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:15:55 +0000

trout, you need to get real. The whole shenanigan is an eye sore and is no reflection of a cosmopolitan capital. We are now the Polynesian Capital of the World. Auckland can be a whole lot more and it’s not going to get there if we continue to grasp onto the straws of our past.

Move the port along and get it going again. Even with the ports where they’re now, it has many examples of what could only be known as UNDER-PERFORMANCE.

A whole new site could benefit everybody.

By: groundedkiwi

groundedkiwi — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:00:01 +0000

It seems ironic that councils are going to be spending millions on the ports, when they still haven’t made up their minds if the sea levels are going to be rising or not.

By: The Scorned

The Scorned — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:49:08 +0000

Oh for fucks sake lets just teleport the shit in and save ourselves all this hassle and moaning….

By: trout

trout — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:22:52 +0000

What a bunch of dreamers. Here we are borrowing $250 mill a week to sustain the unsustainable and the yuppies want to strangle the lifeblood of the country for a latte with a view. Auckland is a merchant town, always has been. It is a city built on trade and industry and a working deep water port is an essential component. The city has already appropriated over half of ex harbour board land for public use (with high costs and precious little income) but you want more. Lets just cut off all shipping and go back to grass skirts and bird trapping.

By: mikenmild

mikenmild — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:00:24 +0000

More good points against Seaview insider. Wellington already has some kind of plan to move the main port operation eventually to the area from the ferry terminal to the Kaiwharawhar reclamation. I think on the Seaview part of the post, DPF was probably just babbling on (again).

By: insider

insider — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:55:45 +0000

What a load of ignorant middle class nonsense – ‘move the port because it is spoiling my view and damn the cost or the practicality’.

Seaview has a 200m jetty for a reason – it is too shallow to accommodate ships. Seaview is also the main repository for the silt and shingle that flows out of the Hutt river. It also has poor heavy vehicle access with no state highway. Minor problems compared to your view and promenade.

By: DeepScience

DeepScience — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:50:20 +0000

@Tautaioleua, just guessing a combination of constant dredging required and one of the most dangerous entrances in the world.

@rest of you, the CBD does not represent the nature of the Auckland sprawl. Len might be trying to turn the city into a highrise slum that Wellingtonians might be used to but it’s just not us. Well, not most of us. So the question is damage the entire areas economic productivity for the sake of a few whiny coffee drinkers? Get Auckland working for the country. Auckland is brilliant but if you’re sending tourists to the CBD to show off NZ you’ve got to be brain dead.

By: Nostalgia-NZ

Nostalgia-NZ — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:35:59 +0000

Depth of water is already a problem where they are, the logistics to the inland ports seems to be at a maximum stretch. I think POAL have to get a lot smarter and more efficient, when you consider the exit and entry to the container port for trucks you very quickly see the limitations, probably needs a tunnel linking to the ‘port’ motorway and perhaps even a truck only lane as far as the Mt Wellington, Onehunga (Airport) exit. For the desire of a bigger port the supporting infrastrucure isn’t coping well now, overloading it more is like letting billy bunter into the chocolate factory.

By: Tautaioleua

Tautaioleua — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:10:20 +0000

Can somebody explain why the port in Onehunga was abandoned? I see one ship every month in that port and it certainly has potential to expand into a national asset once again.

Just imagine the employment opportunities this would offer local South Auckland communities in Mangere and Otahuhu?

I don’t know a lot of major cosmopolitan cities in the world with a run down port in the heart of their Central Business District. Once again, our urban planners from yesteryear were a miserably lot. None of them had any foresight.