Shipping

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Not set out on their website.

• Investigate proposals for a concessionary 'tonnage tax' and/or a container tax as discussed by the multi-party Shipping Review as a means of developing the coastal shipping industry.
• Ensure that adequate labour standards (wages and conditions) on international vessels in New Zealand waters are maintained, irrespective of the flag under which the ship operates.
• Support the move under CER to consider trips between Australian ports, New Zealand ports, and Australian and New Zealand ports as a single market.
• Address port market power as it pertains to the 'captured user'.
• Investigate the feasibility of re-establishing some coastal shipping facilities in areas remote from rail and which are currently only served by road.
• Restore cabotage for New Zealand coastal shipping.
• Ensure New Zealand Transport Agency and local authorities have the resources and skills to properly evaluate shipping projects as part of considering options for freight movement.
• Work to encourage the development of hybrid vessels (eg wind/solar), building on work already done in Germany, Japan and Scandinavia, which are less dependent on cheap fossil fuels.
• Steadily raise biosecurity inspection standards for containers and other cargo.
• Tighten procedures for managing risks associated with discharges of ballast water for both domestic and international shipping.
• Encourage greater cooperation between ports to ensure that biosecurity inspection standards can be steadily raised without causing undue disruption to port operations.
• Enhance our ability to prevent exotic species from entering New Zealand and the ability to respond to any incursions that do occur (e.g. continued and expanded public education, six-sided inspection of cargo containers, off-shore inspection of containers, increased staff training and technology, emergency response fund, permanent pest surveillance programmes around ports). (more here)

• Labour will revisit the “Sea Change” strategy we launched in 2008, which aimed to revitalise and transform coastal shipping in New Zealand.
• Labour will tag funding from the National Land Transport Programme to facilitate an increase in coastal shipping. This is important as we explore ways to avoid a high carbon future.
• Labour will urgently review New Zealand‟s preparedness for marine oil spills, especially the capability of Maritime New Zealand.
• Labour will accede to the international treaties which define and simplify the compensation regime that applies in the event of future oil spills.
• Labour will review the minimum technical requirements for navigation systems of large vessels operating in New Zealand waters. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

Not set out on their website.

Not set out on their website.

• Promote barging and coastal shipping services where economically viable as an alternative to land-based freight movement. (more here)