Tauranga’s fast track plan hits a snag

Image: Port of Tauranga Ltd

CEO laments “drafting error” holding up the port’s much needed container terminal expansion.

The Port of Tauranga in New Zealand has reacted with exasperation after a judicial review of its “fast track” application for an expansion was upheld because the container terminal aspect of the project was not included in a schedule in the legislation referring the project for fast-track approval.

Tauranga had previously applied to have its “Stella Passage” project fast tracked under a new government process that allows streamlined permitting for critical infrastructure projects. The Stella Passage proposal includes separate projects for dredging and extending the berths at the Sulphur Point container terminal and Mount Maunganui terminal. The approval would allow the port to pull the trigger on a berth and yard expansion, including beginning a gradual transition to an ASC yard stacking system.

Following the new fast track legislation, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accepted the port’s fast track application as complete. This means a full review under NZ’s Resource Management Act (RMA) is not required. However, local Maori authority Ngāti Kuku Hapū Trust, which opposes the dredging and in-fill aspects of the Stella Passage, sought a judicial review of the EPA decision on the basis that the reference to Mount Maunganui was omitted from the schedule in the empowering legislation. The port argued that this was merely an oversight as the whole purpose of the fast-track process was to allow the port to expand, but the judge could not agree that this was the only viable conclusion. Given environmental opposition to the port’s expansion the Judge considered there could be good reason to apply the more onerous RMA process to part of the expansion. He noted that if the omission was just a drafting error, the port could apply for a new referral to fast track the Mount Maunganui part of its expansion.

The decision means the expert panel that was to convene on 1 September 2025 to consider the port’s application has been put on hold. “Port of Tauranga Chief Executive, Leonard Sampson, said it was clearly ludicrous that a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the NZ economy could be unnecessarily delayed yet again – this time by a few words missing from a schedule due to a drafting oversight,” the port said in a statement.

In the port’s view it has been consistent that its Stella Passage resource consent “has always included the Sulphur Point and Mount Maunganui wharves. The Judge’s decision agrees that whilst it may have been left out by mistake, there is no discretion, and the EPA should not have accepted the application based of the current wording in the schedule of the legislation.”

Counting the cost
The Port of Tauranga has just announced it handled 1.2m TEU in FY2035, a 5.3% increase year-on-year. In total tonnage a bumper kiwifruit season pushed volume to 25.3mt, a 7% increase year-on-year. Port of Tauranga Chair, Julia Hoare, said the port’s container berths “are at capacity and unable to accommodate new services or effectively deal with congestion caused by ships arriving off schedule.

“We are turning away shipping lines that want to call at Tauranga,” added Chief Executive Leonard Sampson.” In the last month, the Port has had to turn away a proposed new service to the Americas that would have provided New Zealand importers and exporters with an estimated $65 million to $90 million per annum in international freight savings. The delays are preventing a much-needed boost to the New Zealand economy,” he said.

The port is urging the government to “act quickly and rectify the wording in the fast-track legislation to resolve the situation.”

Source: worldcargonews.com