Read News Article HERE.
The Road Transport Forum are bang-on in their summation in the above article.
Ports need to get full containers with non-essential goods off the port, but if there's nobody at the receiving end at work, where do you put them?
More-ever who arbitrates what is essential or not?
Is farm machinery less worthy than toilet paper?
What about a container with toilet paper, farm equipment, board games and gym gear?
And if there's just 1 container in 100 with products the country now deperately needs hitting our shores.
What's going to happen to the other 99%?
Can were expect port workers etc. to pull that one priority container from the growing stack?
Everything arriving into N.Z Ports over the next four weeks was after-all ordered months ago.
When Wuhan Flu was someone elses problem.
Will importers want to pay G.S.T on a container-load of products they can’t access or get to the market?
Where are these massive holding yards that are both a secure Customs Bonded Area & Approved MPI Transitional Facility?
Not well thought out there Minister of Transport, Phil Twyford.
This won't be a case of mild constipation either!
Up-Date: Finance Minister Grant Robertson verbally stated (Friday 27th March) businesses will be able to open their warehouses to receive incoming shipments of non-essential goods to alleviate congestion. Subsequent to this statement nothing has been definitively stated by the Government confirming this relaxation as at Tuesday 31st.
Up-Date # 2: Refer our news article dated 02nd April in which David Seymour finally gets Phil Twyford (Minister of Transport) to clarify the position of the logistics industry/importers when it came to unloading containers with non-essential products.
Article Posted: Thursday 26th March