Latest / Best of Business / Simon Kebbell: Port of Tauranga CFO on the port getting approved for an expansion

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Simon Kebbell: Port of Tauranga CFO on the port getting approved for an expansion · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The port of Tauranga has officially been given the green
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: light for its expansion plans. The upgrades will allow larger
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: ships to berth and it will nearly double the handling capacity.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Simon Kebbell is the Chief Financial Officer for the port.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Hi Simon.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Good evening.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like you can celebrate this now.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got a bit of a smile on our
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  Speaker 3: face today. It's been a long time building to this
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: milestone and we're just really relieved that we're here. Okay.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: How soon will you get all of this done and
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  Speaker 2: you can say the expansion is finished and the ships
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  Speaker 2: can come?
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  Speaker 3: It's probably going to take six months to stand up
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: for construction. So there will be consent conditions that we
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: have to meet first, get our contractor in line, and
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: then it's a two-year build time. So two years from now.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Two and a half years.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, brilliant. How good is that? So if you'd just
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  Speaker 2: been able to do this from the minute that you
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: actually wanted to do it, it would be well done
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  Speaker 2: by now, years ago.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, correct. I mean, we started formal stakeholder engagement on
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: this project in 2019.
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  Speaker 2: Now, what is going on with you paying the marae?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: So you're paying them a million dollars in the next
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  Speaker 2: year and then $ 25, 000 every year thereafter. What's that for?
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  Speaker 3: It's cultural mitigations. I mean, we acknowledge that Whare Roa
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Marae is in a position where it's had the city
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  Speaker 3: and the port grow around them, and they have got
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: some genuine grievances, and we think the payment goes towards
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: mitigating the cultural impacts.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Are you worried this is going to set a precedent?
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: No, look, we've done resource consents before. We've paid small
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: amounts of money for cultural mitigations. And, I mean, it's
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: already been done. It's not setting a precedent.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So it's already a thing.
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  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Simon.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Appreciate your time, mate. Go and celebrate that. Simon Keble,
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  Speaker 2: Port of Tauranga CFO. They've been fighting it since 2019.
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  Speaker 2: He is the chap who is one of the Bremworth shareholders.
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  Speaker 2: He's close to 20% worth of Bremworth. who wanted to basically,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: he wants to take it off in a different direction.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So he's offering 90 cents. They come back at Godfreyhurst
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: at 95 cents. If you're going for the top dollar.
• 2:25
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