A consortium made up of three Ngāi Tahu rūnanga and one of the largest port operators on earth has put an unsolicited proposal on the table to take over the running of Lyttelton Port, the biggest port in the South Island. The pitch has reopened a long running argument about who should control the gateway through which a large share of the South Island’s exports and imports move.
The group calls itself Tōnui. It brings together Te Hapū o Ngāti Wheke, Te Ngāi Tūāhuriri Rūnanga and Te Taumutu Rūnanga alongside DP World, a Dubai based logistics company. According to RNZ, the proposal landed by email late on Wednesday last week. It was sent to Christchurch City Holdings Limited, the council owned investment company that holds Lyttelton Port Company on behalf of Christchurch ratepayers.
What the consortium is proposing is not a straight sale. Tōnui says the land and the port assets would stay in public ownership. The idea is to set up a joint operating company that would run day to day operations and fund the port’s future growth, while the public continues to own the dirt and the wharves. The partners argue this is a way to bring in money and expertise without asking ratepayers to carry the whole bill for the upgrades a modern port needs.
In a joint statement the group said the port faces a heavy investment programme in the years ahead. “Without a new funding and operating model, that investment would otherwise need to be funded from within the existing public ownership structure, increasing pressure on CCHL, LPC and Christchurch ratepayers,” the partners said. The argument, in plain terms, is that the cost of keeping the port competitive has to come from somewhere, and the consortium wants to be the one that supplies it.
Liz Brown, the spokesperson for Tōnui, put the rūnanga interest in cultural and environmental terms. “Critical for rūnanga is making sure the needs of the port, Whakaraupō-Lyttelton Harbour and the region’s environment are safeguarded,” she said. Whakaraupō is the Māori name for Lyttelton Harbour, the deep inlet on Banks Peninsula where the port sits.
Nicolaj Noes, an executive vice president for DP World in Oceania, framed the bid as a long term commitment. “The proposal offers a long-term investment in the port and the region aligning with the rūnanga’s commitment to wider social benefit,” he said.
DP World is not a small player. The company is based in Dubai and runs more than 80 marine and inland terminals across more than 40 countries. It handles around 70 million containers a year carried by roughly 70,000 vessels, which works out to close to a tenth of all the container traffic moving through the world’s ports. For a company of that scale, Lyttelton is a modest target, but it would give DP World a foothold in New Zealand it does not currently have.
Lyttelton Port Company is fully owned by Christchurch City Council through CCHL. It is the largest port in the South Island and a profitable one, returning dividends to the council that help keep rates lower than they would otherwise be. That public ownership, and the income it produces, sits at the heart of the opposition that has greeted the proposal.
The waterfront unions have come out swinging. The Maritime Union, the Rail and Maritime Transport Union and others have framed the bid as privatisation dressed up in friendlier language. Maritime Union national secretary Carl Findlay told Chris Lynch Media that the move was “a short sighted agenda driven purely by profit rather than the public good.” He said a private operator would chase “maximum returns through cost cutting, increased fees and workforce reductions,” and pointed out the port is “already highly profitable and returning record revenues to the community under public control.”
Gerard Loader, secretary of the Lyttelton branch of the Maritime Union, put the worry about the local economy bluntly. “Robots don’t pay tax. Robots don’t pay rates or buy things from local businesses or buy properties or pay rent,” he said. He described the proposal as “a coordinated ambush on a profitable public asset that belongs to the people of Christchurch,” and warned the city risked trading “a long term income stream in exchange for a one off payment.”
Mark Wilson, the Lyttelton branch secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union, pointed to DP World’s record in Australia, where unions have clashed with the company over pay and conditions. He warned of “skyrocketing costs for local businesses” and “widespread job losses on the waterfront” if the deal went ahead. The consortium has tried to head off that fear by promising that all current port workers would keep their jobs on terms no less favourable than they have now.
For its part, CCHL has been careful to play down any suggestion that a change of ownership is on the cards. Chief executive Matthew Slater said the company “has no plans to review or consider changes to the current ownership structure of LPC.” The board has confirmed it received the unsolicited proposal and is considering it, which is what directors are obliged to do, but receiving a proposal is a long way from acting on one. Lyttelton Port Company itself has said it has not entered into any negotiations, agreements or discussions with DP World.
Because the proposal was unsolicited, the next move belongs to CCHL and ultimately to Christchurch City Council, which would have a strong say in any decision that touched the ownership or long term control of an asset the city has held for generations. Any serious progress would almost certainly trigger a public consultation, given how strongly Cantabrians tend to feel about the port.
The bigger picture is a familiar one for New Zealand. Councils across the country are under real financial pressure, infrastructure is expensive, and large global operators have the capital that cash strapped local bodies often lack. Lyttelton is now a test case for whether a partnership model that keeps the land in public hands can satisfy people who hear the word privatisation and reach for their placards. For now the proposal sits in CCHL’s inbox, and the people of Christchurch will be watching closely to see what happens next.
What do you think? Should Lyttelton Port stay entirely in public hands, or is a partnership with a global operator a sensible way to fund its future? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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