Totally agree. Maybe time to set up as a consultant.

Smudge can probably write a report for them now for a fraction of the cost.

Alan

The fact that they have even considered it is gross incompetence. Let alone allocate money to it. 5 minutes thought shows how stupid the idea is.

Manukau or down town Akl. How much money does it take to work out that it is a non-starter?

Alan

The bar crossing is only 5m deep at low tide on the South channel. If the swell is 3m then that doesn't give much draft for a ship.

It's a long slow trip up the harbour

The roads out of Onehunga won't handle trucks. Those roads are already full

Could even do trans-Tasman ferry terminal while they are at it... maybe even a tunnel to Sydney in years to come.

they should have committed to the manukau 50 years ago, and dug a ditch through to the tamaki estuary so that you have a cut through to the east coast for commercial shipping - far too late to do it now though

whangarei seems to be the obvious solution

Jim Henson passed away before all the muppets had appropriate jobs. Hence our public service m/puppets.

The Port of Tauranga proposed a merger years ago, to be declined by our then Auckland care givers, go figure.

The major cost of a rail link north was identified by both as a limiting option back then. 

But no was the answer. 

The shipping companies are ruling out NZ as a direct delivery location. Too many ports. Too shallow in some ports for the next generation vessels. Potentially we will live with (inbound at least) the added cost of transshipping, for most imports. From memory some 30 percent of inbound containers were empty to deal with dairy, etc. outbound. Be interesting to know how that cost was shared.

2020:

Smudge you should bundle up those replies, print them under a nice letterhead, and send it in with the invoice.

Alan

There is a Auckland Uni, study over many decades on the movement of the huge bank of black sand that has been going up the coast from taranaki . I understand movement has been going of for a few 100yrs.

From memory, as at a few yrs back the top edge is up around Port Waikato.

Which was re reason for sand encroaching some buildings not long back.

Yes currently its high seas and erosion digging at the houses, which is a different but parallel matter.

I cant rem when it gets to the Manukau, but was within my life time.

 I have noticed a significant change in the banks /shallows on the inside of the waikato bar and narrowing of the main channel.

I do not know the actual reason why the Onehunga port was closed down...but as a kid we fished between the freighters off the wharf back then... late 50s to mid 60s. But Im sure there was a good economic reason for it, maybe including bar access etc.

Now throw in in the commonsense stuff you guys are saying about the bar...PhD s are far too often, to confirm what commonsence guys already know, at huge expense.

And I would not be surprised there are already a few research thesis on the bar floating around.

 Throw in the huge black sand bank movement up the coast.

Throw in land access, which lets us not forget only recently this has been done at millions dollars of research and consultancy, and a bone of contention  (like the Mill Rd project)

And they want to spend more millions going over the same damn stuff again???

Like duplicated the harbour bridge.crossing BS consultancy and waste public money of resent yrs.

We as rate payers and tax payer are actively watching our money go to consulting etc in numbers way out of proportion to any other government ... and then when or if every followed thru so often a total failure at the coal face.. everything from 'child poverty. law and enforcement to mental health, education.

This/ these is a very bad redirections of public funds from the coal face and pretty much helicoptering (with serious inflationary effects) of public funds into area of the economy where should not be going.

This is so wrong on so many faces.

This was an option looked at in the 1990's, stacked up environmentally but was too expensive.

There has been a number of feasibility studies done on shifting the port to the Manukau over the years and it has always come back too problematic for a number of reasons including a historical government pledge (not sure who was in power at the time) to iwi that no major development would happen in the Manukau Harbour.

Agree completely. Can't be any other explanation for wasting taxpayers money. Does anyone seriously think the Akl port is moving to the Manukau??

Alan

But this proposal as I understand it is simply about moving the port to the other side of the city - nothing else on the table. There is a good reason most of our ports are on the East coast. Unless they plan to reinvent the wheel.

Alan

Next election cant come around soon enough.

Election day in the 'West Island' tomorrow.  I fear it's a real possibility that the western cousins of the morons you have will be voted in.  The only consolation is that they are less left.

Alan

Not refining - but still a major fuel import depot I think.

Alan

Port Whangarei has a high profile advocate by the name of Wayne Brown behind it.

He seems to get a disproportionate amount of air time for his options - no doubt a fairly smart guy who has had high profile jobs in the past - but always has a lot to say for himself. It is hard to get a word in if you find yourself in conversation with him.

He is currently running for the AKLD mayor position.

It did make complete sense when they built it, but since then the container ship has been invented and they just keep getting bigger and bigger.  If you started from scratch with a modern container port now you wouldn't build it there.

My prayers went unanswered Alan.  I guess it was always going to an uphill battle when the son of god was a chippy. 

Look for someone to want to move one of your ports shortly.

Alan