If the port had to be moved from Auckland it should be to somewhere ships can get in and out safely, he said.
“You also want to go somewhere near the largest consumption area which is the Auckland-Tauranga-Hamilton-Waikato area.
“The only place you can do that is the Firth of Thames. It’s not ideal.”
He agreed with the Sapere report that Ports of Auckland could keep operating for more than 30 years before it ran out of space where it was.
“But New Zealand’s not good at doing this sort of stuff and we take so long to do it that we need to start working at it and looking at it.
“If you look at it from a logistical point of view, the decisions become quite easy – it’s when you get politics involved it becomes quite hard.
“The shipping companies who in the end of the day determine where their vessels come would not choose Manukau, ever.”
Shane Jones told Morning Report he had come off second best to people opposed to a relocation to Northland.
“I had professionally and personally campaigned with my leader for the expansion of Northport and relocation of Ports of Auckland activity to Tauranga and Northland,” he said.
He invoked the sinking of the Orpheus in 1863, in which 189 people died, as reason to not build a port at Manukau Harbour.
“I will prophesy that a thousand years will pass before a new port will ever be located in Manukau Harbour.
“[The Sapere report] wants to take us over the bar of the most treacherous harbour in New Zealand and dredge to a level of spill that will rival Mt Cook somewhere in New Zealand or it’ll be dumped in the ocean.”
Jones said work on a new port needed to “get cracking” in 10 to 15 years.
“In New Zealand we leave too many infrastructure decisions to the last minute.”
No decision is to be made before the election, leaving it for political parties to campaign on.
