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"Didn't meet that criteria": Associate Minister of Transport blocks coastal shipping bid

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 12 Dec 2025, 6:44pm
Minister for the South Island James Meager. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Minister for the South Island James Meager. Photo / Mark Mitchell

"Didn't meet that criteria": Associate Minister of Transport blocks coastal shipping bid

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 12 Dec 2025, 6:44pm

The country's largest cement supplier says we'll soon have over 500 more trucks on the road every month to move cement across the country. 

They recently requested to use a foreign-flagged vessel with foreign crew to operate for three years while a new vessel was built to replace their outdated M-V Buffalo. 

But this request was declined by the Associate Transport Minister, James Meager. 

He told Ryan Bridge that, "you tend to only give authorizations to carry things for a very short or temporary period, to make up a bit of a gap. And in this instance, it just didn't meet that criteria."

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