A Voice for Shipping - The New Zealand Shipping Federation Story

In 2007, the NZ Shipping Federation celebrated 100 years representing NZ shipping companies. To mark the milestone and to capture that history, we commissioned well known historian, Gavin Mclean, to write a book on the Federation's history. His book, A Voice for Shipping is now available. It is hard copy, and includes many pictures, some colour and some black and white. The New Zealand Shipowners' Federation was formed at Auckland in 1906 to succeed a short-lived local association. Although initially ignored by the country's largest shipowner, the Union Steam Ship Co, the Federation played an important part in settling the 1917 and the 1922 seamen's strikes. From then until the 1990s much of its time was occupied with industrial negotiations. As land (and later air) transport ate into the coastal general cargo trade, rate setting became another core business item. The third strand of the business was lobbying government. That mix changed in the decade between 1984 and 1994 when governments radically reformed the economy. The shipping industry had already gone through a technological revolution with containers, roll-on, roll-off (RO-RO) and bulk carriers drastically trimming the New Zealand fleet. The political revolution went further, reshaping the ownership of the ports and shipping industries and work practices. In remarkably short order, changes previously thought politically impossible, were enacted. In the twenty-first century the New Zealand Shipping Federation is the advocate for domestic shipping playing its full part in addressing the country's transport and environmental concerns - in short, it is A VOICE FOR SHIPPING.