 There needs to be some leadership shown by somebody. Good evening, sir. It's all right. You're backing the union here, Mr Shearer, are you? No, what I said and you quoted me correctly, I was really disappointed to see where it had got to today. I think the big losers here, obviously the workers and their families, is going to be the ports of Auckland. But the ports of Auckland is owned by Aucklanders, and ultimately Aucklanders, and particularly Auckland businesses, are going to be the big losers. You say that you're not backing the union, but you've had some of your MPs picketing with some of these union members, so clearly you're backing the union here. Well, the number of our MPs, obviously, who have got close links to the unions, but I've said before and I'll say again that my stance on this is that very much we want to see good, secure work for all the workers that are there, and that applies right across the board, actually, to other workers across New Zealand. But these workers had a chance of good, secure work, and they lost that opportunity? Well, let's just go through... Well, I don't know if I've lost that opportunity, but it seems to me that this is obviously a bargain process that was going on between two sides. And I understand that I bailed out, so I wasn't able to listen to your previous interview, if you've had the union on to give their side of the argument or not. Well, we know what the union's argument is and it's around greater labour flexibility and something they called casualisation. I'll talk about that in a moment, but you're suggesting in your press release that negotiations weren't conducted in good faith. How do you come to that conclusion? This union rejected nine different offers, which all look pretty fair and reasonable. I think this is the reason why I would argue, Larry, that you probably need to get the union on to give their side of the story because I don't know the full details about it. I don't follow this on a day-to-day basis. But let's look at the port from a stand-back and look at it. 37% of all New Zealand containers go through in and out of this port. The guys down there were 24-7, including Christmas. They get one week off in three. They've continually, over the last year or so, been lifting their productivity in terms of their movement of containers. We've got a productivity there of about 6%. In Auckland, it's about 6.3% in Tauranga. Tauranga's a different sort of port. Well, isn't it funny that since... No, no, no, you're talking about productivity. Let's come in with the real facts here. Isn't it funny then that since they've been striking productivity at that port has gone up 25%? OK, well, I understood that there's a lot of containers taking days and days to come through that port. But this Auckland port is more productive than many of the ports in Australia who have got contracted out labour. So, look, I don't want to get in a fight about who's right and who's wrong here. All I'm saying here is that the fact that it's come to this, that the port is likely to be closed or certainly going slow for the next few weeks. And then after that, who knows if there's going to be that improvement because we've got no guarantees there's going to be any improvement. Who loses in this deal? How much is it costing Auckland ratepayers to have this dispute going on? Well, you're suggesting there's going to be a loss here but over time, with the increase in productivity, it's... Can you guarantee that contracting out is going to increase? Yeah, I will. Yeah, right here, right now. Yes, I will. Quite obviously it does, David. And you know it does. Well, listen, answer this question then. Here's the thing. Here's what was negotiated, David. David, here's what was negotiated. The ports of Auckland wanting greater labour flexibility. What is wrong with the ports of Auckland allocating labour to when ships arrive? Instead of having wharfies lying around with their bums doing nothing. What's wrong with that? Is that what happens at the moment? It is. Working 28 hours and getting paid for 43. And you know that for absolutely? Absolutely. Here's this casualisation process nonsense that I've been talking about. The offer was for 160 hours over four weeks guaranteed. That's an average of 40 hours a week. That's full-time work, David. No, I don't know the details in all of this. OK, OK, OK. We'll cut you some slack bits. I mean, I don't... You think... I've spoken to the union. I've spoken to Lyn Brown. What I've said was that what we need to do is to avoid a dispute which closes down our ports. And I'm looking now at a dispute that's probably going to go on for several weeks. And I'm looking at a massive cost to Auckland. How much of the redundancy is going to cost? How much are we losing in the port now and what's not working? How long will it take before... We make up if we do, because I don't... I'm sorry, but I don't necessarily... I haven't seen any figures that would tell me that productivity is going to go up as a result of contracting out. Do you think the mayor should have stepped in? Look, I think there's... If there's a role to be played by anybody in a leadership position, the council is probably the one that ultimately they are the owners... As I understand it, legislation prevents that. Is that correct? I honestly don't know, but I would have thought that given that the two sides are unable to get to an agreement and we've now got a port that's closed, there needs to be some leadership shown by somebody... Well, yeah, it's not totally closed because independent contractors are working the port and ships are coming in and going... Well, they're coming into some degree. I mean, there are some wolfies that are working on the non-container port that have been pushed across into the container port, which is what I understand. Well, I thank you for coming on the program and I appreciate it very much.