Transporting New Zealand welcomes competition law shake-up

Road freight association Transporting New Zealand is welcoming the Government’s competition law shakeup, saying that reform is needed to address limited competition in ports, airports, airlines, retail electricity and fuel.

Transporting New Zealand’s Head of Policy and Advocacy Billy Clemens says that as a highly competitive sector of over 5,000 individual businesses, 75% operating five trucks or fewer, road freight businesses were frustrated with large supply chain partners frequently increasing costs without improving their services.

“Reports from MBIE and the OECD have highlighted weak competition in key sectors of the economy, including from banking, insurance, ports, and airports, just to name a few.”

“As an example, over the past few years our members have seen substantial hikes in some port access fees that road freight companies and their customers pay to collect and deliver cargo, with no proportional increase in port productivity and performance.”

Clemens says that the proposed reforms had the potential to stop markets becoming increasingly concentrated and could potentially enable the creation of industry codes or rules to promote competition between supply chain partners.

“This is a great opportunity to boost New Zealand’s productivity and put downward pressure on road freight costs, that will benefit all businesses and consumers.”

“We’re looking forward to seeing the Commerce Act amendments introduced to Parliament and consulted on before Christmas and passed by mid next year.”

ENDS

For more information contact:

Billy Clemens, Head of Policy and Advocacy, Transporting New Zealand, 027 3041 877.