Christopher Luxon coy on Winston Peters’ Cook Strait ferry decision deadline

• Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has said a decision on the future of Cook Strait ferries will be made by December 11.
• Prime Minister Christopher Luxon won’t be drawn on the date, only saying the decision will be made before the end of the year.
• Luxon says any new ferries will be ‘rail compatible’.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is coy on whether a decision will be made on the future of Cook Strait ferries by the deadline Winston Peters has publicly set.

Last week Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader, told the House the Government would decide on the ferries by December 11.

“It was always [December 11] or before so, we haven’t pushed any date out at all.”

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning, Luxon said that date would be a year since the Government announced it was stopping KiwiRail’s mega ferry plan.

When asked if that meant the new ferry plan would be revealed by the deadline Peters had outlined, Luxon said there would be an announcement by the end of the year.

The scheme to replace the current ageing Interislander fleet with two larger rail-enabled ships was left dead in the water in December after overall costs, including new terminals and wharf upgrades, ballooned to almost $3 billion and the new Government refused to fund the blowout.

Hosking put to Luxon that the Government had clearly done a new deal given it was only two weeks until the December 11 deadline.

“We’ll have more to say about that”, Luxon said.

When pressed again, Luxon said: “All I’d say is that we’re going to get a solution in place”.

“It’s important we get a good one in place, we’ll do that.”

Hosking asked if in that case, negotiations were still live.

“It’s coming”, Luxon said without giving anything away.

As recently as last month, negotiations to exit the mega ferry ship-building contract were continuing, according to KiwiRail.

When asked whether trains would be able to go on and off the new ferries, Luxon said they would be “rail compatible”.

Hosking probed whether that meant they would not be rail-enabled.

Luxon said: “They’ll be rail-compatible as it is today, it works very well.”

A decision on an alternative plan ferry has taken longer than expected.

In early July, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the public would “find out about the ferries once ministers have made decisions” and she expected this to be within the quarter.

That quarter came and went.

Willis and Luxon then said there would be a decision by the end of this year.

“We’re evaluating the ministerial advisory group’s advice and we’ll have more to say about it towards the end of the year,” Luxon said.

There has been speculation the question of whether the ferries should be rail-enabled is behind the hold-up.

Luxon was confident the Government’s new plan would be cheaper than the previous mega ferry plan.

Luxon said the Government “will have a full announcement” when asked if the total exit cost of cancelling iRex would also be included.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.