The Interislander's Kaiārahi has been out of service since Tuesday night. Photo / RNZ, Bill Hickman
By Penny Smith of RNZ
The Green Party is warning that New Zealand is facing a “perfect storm” of transport disruption after the latest ferry breakdowns and cancellations left travellers stranded and freight operators scrambling to move goods between the North and South Islands.
The Interislander’s Kaiārahi has been out of service since Tuesday night because of a technical fault. An Interislander staff member has gone overseas to collect crucial components to fix the stricken ferry.
Meanwhile, a technical fault meant Bluebridge’s Connemara ferry was also cancelled on Thursday and Friday. Its Picton-Wellington service was scheduled to return to service early on Saturday morning.
“All customers affected by this cancellation have been automatically transferred to an alternative sailing and will receive an updated e-ticket with revised sailing and check-in time,” Bluebridge said on its website.
“If your rescheduled sailing time doesn’t suit your needs, standby lists will be operating from each direction for affected passengers across subsequent sailings.”
Greens transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter said the Interislander fleet had effectively dropped from six ships to four in recent days.
She said the situation highlighted the risks created by the Government’s decision to cancel a previous contract for two new Interislander ferries that had already been ordered.
On Thursday, Genter raised the issue during Parliament’s Question Time, when she asked acting Prime Minister David Seymour if he accepted that his Government’s decision to cancel the new ferries would likely continue to cause disruptions to passengers and freight.
“On behalf of the Prime Minister, no, I don’t accept that, because there have been long-documented problems with the existing ferries,” Seymour replied.
“That does not mean that the unaffordable and unviable solution that the previous Government put in place was the best answer for New Zealand. Yes, the ferries break down from time to time. Now, I’ve heard about politicians that bark at every car, but I’ve never heard of one that barks at every ferry,” he said.
Genter said the decision to cancel the contract was “irresponsible” and accused the Government of creating a transport crisis across the Cook Strait by leaving New Zealand relying on an ageing fleet that was increasingly breaking down.
“We’re seeing massive disruptions to supply chains and also passengers’ ability to get between the North and South Island because yet another Interislander ferry has had to be taken offline,” she said.
Genter warned that ageing ferries, rising oil prices and more severe weather were combining to create mounting pressure on the Cook Strait crossing.
“It’s a perfect storm,” she said.
“We have potentially an extended period of high and fluctuating oil prices affecting airlines, more severe weather affecting both airlines and ferries, and ageing ferries being taken offline for unplanned maintenance when there should already have been replacement ships here this year.”
She said the Government’s decision to cancel the ferries previously ordered by KiwiRail meant replacements would not arrive until at least 2029.
“That’s going to mean huge cost and disruption to freight and passenger movements between our two islands until we can get replacement ferries.”
Genter accused the coalition Government of refusing to acknowledge the scale of the problem.
“The Government is clearly unwilling to admit that it made a mistake,” she said.
“They cancelled the ferries that were on order and the wharf upgrades that were underway. Now they need to come up with some sort of interim solution.”
British tourist Stephen Edwards, who is travelling around New Zealand with his wife, described chaotic scenes at the Picton ferry terminal on Thursday after multiple cancellations.
Edwards said he first received an email saying his Interislander sailing had been cancelled. He then booked a replacement with Bluebridge, which was also delayed and later cancelled.
“We were on our feet for three hours trying to rebook,” he said.
“You’ve never seen chaos like it.”
He said queues formed across the terminal as hundreds of passengers attempted to rebook sailings while vehicles blocked lanes waiting to board.
Eventually, the couple were forced to book a hotel and return on Friday before securing a new ferry.
“We were utterly exhausted,” Edwards said.
The couple’s friend Dave Rees, who helped drive the tourists to the terminal, said the disruption created confusion and long waits for passengers seeking information.
“It was just very crowded, people coming in all the time,” he said.
“Information was scant and had to be sought rather than given.”
Rees said the issues left a poor impression for visitors.
“It gives the impression of a very disorganised place and a place that’s kind of operating on a shoestring,” he said.
He compared the ferry route to a critical transport link.
“The Cook Strait is like a bridge between the two parts of a motorway and the bridge is forever closing.”
Contract electrician Michael Casey, who regularly travels between the North and South Islands for work, said ferry reliability was becoming a serious issue for contractors and freight.
“If I can’t travel, I can’t work,” he said.
Casey, who is based in Nelson but often works in the North Island, said cancellations could make it impossible to get to jobs with the tools he needed.
“You need your vehicle. I take my tools up. If I tried to take them on a plane it would be bags and bags and it’s just not economic.”
He said sailings were often booked out days in advance, making disruptions even harder to manage.
“When one ferry goes down that’s 25% of the market gone.”
Rail Minister Winston Peters said the Government’s record was cleaning up the “Cook Strait iReX mess”, while the legacy of the Greens could be seen at Moa Point.
“The previous Government turned a simple ferry and port project into a $4 billion blowout, which we turned around and saved the taxpayers $2.3b without compromising on what New Zealanders expect,” he said.
“Two state-of-the-art ferries will arrive in 2029 to serve road, rail and passengers, while marine infrastructure in Picton and Wellington will be rebuilt without the expensive frippery introduced by the last Government.”
Peters said the previous project had “Taj Mahal level” passenger buildings and sought to completely rebuild perfectly good road and rail marshalling yards to the tune of billions in total, all at the taxpayer’s expense.
“This week, the Interislander demonstrated an abundance of caution by taking the Kaiarahi out of service, as New Zealanders expect, and a replacement part arrives on Friday ahead of services resuming on Sunday,” he said.
“We have a firm expectation for high Interislander reliability, which has been near 100% over the past year, thanks to a significant lift in asset maintenance and management.”
Peters said Interislander lifted its spare parts inventory following Government expectations to improve reliability, and it was now responding to its query as to whether any additional parts could be added to the inventory to speed up the repair programmes.
“In the end, our focus is on freighters and families and Interislander has assured us it is prioritising freight bookings, put on eight additional Kaitaki sailings, and has offered refunds to any passengers with vehicles booked to ‘make way for freight’, which may suit some customers.”
– RNZ