Parliament works under urgency while protests take over its lawns, safety concerns after mega-ferries project gets scrapped and why Israel’s becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage in the latest NZ Herald headlines.
Video / AP / Getty / NZHerald
The Government has declined KiwiRail’s request for an extra $1.47 billion for portside infrastructure needed for Cook Strait’s new mega-ferries.
KiwiRail says it cannot proceed without further Government funding and its board will now oversee the wind-down of the project and review plans for the vital transport connection.
A passenger who experienced a terrifying mayday call on board Interislander’s Kaitaki ferry earlier this year is unimpressed by the decision.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis feared she would be left with a “completely open chequebook” if she had agreed to pour more funding into the Cook Strait mega-ferry project.
Meanwhile, KiwiRail chief executive Peter Reidy has disputed any claims he threatened to pull the Interislander ferries after yesterday’s bombshell announcement.
Willis told TVNZ’s Breakfast this morning she couldn’t promise taxpayers the extra $1.47b required for port-side infrastructure, as part of plans to replace the ageing Interislander ferry fleet, would not have blown out further.
“It’s my responsibility to realise that every dollar we spend is a dollar that can’t be spent on hospitals, on schools, on the roads that need replacing across the country.”
Finance Minister Nicola Willis says the Government will not be funding the purchase of new ferries. Photo / Adam Pearce
KiwiRail was working through the cost of pulling out of its contract and she was confident it would do so at the least cost to the taxpayer.
Asked if the Government would consider selling off the ferry service - commercial operator Bluebridge already takes freight and passengers - Willis agreed Bluebridge did a good job.
“I do want to continue to see competition in ferry services across the Cook Strait. I think the Interislander is an important part of the mix.”
Willis said it was the Government’s position that it would continue to own KiwiRail, including the Interislander service.
“The question, really, is what is the best way to prepare the ferry service for the future? How do we fund that, how do we get the best service for the taxpayer?”
Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking asked Reidy if the rumours were true he threatened to pull the ferries if they did not receive the funding, which Reidy categorically denied.
“This Government has made it clear that they see the ownership of the ferries business as part of our portfolio and part of New Zealand,” Reidy said.
“So any suggestion that I heard yesterday that the ferries were in doubt, you can simply dismiss because you can’t have a two-island nation with no ferries, can you?”
Reidy also denied they purposely lowballed the original figure.
“We thought it was the right solution for New Zealand to deliver a safe and resilient service across the Cook Strait,” Reidy said.
“Ultimately, when we went through that, we said it can’t be done for that money.
“The risk was too high for New Zealand, for our customers.”
Interislander passenger unimpressed after terrifying mayday call
Lorna Johnson said the case for the new ferries was obvious.
”I would characterise the incident that I was involved in earlier this year as a near-miss.
”Just from a health and safety perspective, it became clear that had the ferry drifted any closer to the rocks, the tug boats weren’t strong enough to hold it and we were in trouble.
”It was a frightening experience, so I’m not very impressed at all to hear that the money that’s going to be required to fund two new ferries has been withdrawn and consequently the whole project is cancelled.”
Kaitaki narrowly avoided disaster on January 28 when it issued a mayday call in a howling southerly with 864 people on board, including Johnson.
Johnson wasn’t sure how close they came to a significant loss of life but said it was extremely fortunate the crew were able to restore power.
Transport bosses disagree on decision to scrap ferry investment
The national association for road freight, Transporting NZ, says the Government’s decision not to fund Cook Strait’s ageing ferry network is “the right call”, but a public transport lobbyist has described it as a “knee-jerk reaction” from a Government looking for “an easy way out”.
Dom Kalasih, the acting chief executive for Transporting NZ, told NZME there had been “far too many significant infrastructure projects” which had caused a “major cost blowout”.
“We think the coalition Government calling KiwiRail to account on the cost blowout is the right call”.
Kalasih agreed the ferry service needed to be improved but the question is what’s “fair and reasonable?”.
“When you look at the scale of these blowouts, that would not be acceptable in any business — certainly not in the transport business.”
However, Jon Reeves, from the Public Transport Users Association, told NZME the project had been “kicked down the road” since 2015 and it is time someone picked it up.
“If we kick this any further we are seriously going to have some very old and potentially dangerous ferries cruising the strait”.
“It is a really bad idea to axe this contract now.”
Reeves said the decision would have wide-ranging implications for New Zealand’s public image as well as its infrastructure.
“This is a warning for all international companies that tender large projects in New Zealand — you cannot trust the New Zealand Government because the state-owned enterprise will or could pull out after signing contracts.”
It’s a position that Infrastructure NZ chief executive Nick Leggett agrees with. He told Newstalk ZB’s Kerre Woodham the Government’s decision to “chop and change” the KiwiRail project could cost the economy “billions of dollars”.
Leggett said the decision to scrap the ferries could also have dire implications on businesses that were relying on the work.
“It sucks, it wastes resources and also what it means is those businesses [that were contracted] are scratching around ... the problem with cancelling projects is you undermine businesses and then when you decide you want to turn the tap on later, you find a lot of those people aren’t there.”
He said a broader agreement was needed across both major parties in Government to ensure this back-and-forth did not continue.
“We have too much tinkering by politicians. The last Government was in love with rail, now we have this Government saying ‘no, we’ll cancel it’.”
“We have to have a long-term understanding with the two parties signing up for it. Let’s start doing this stuff better because when you chop and change with projects you are costing our economy billions of dollars.”
Rail Advocacy Collective national coordinator Niall Robertson said the Government’s decision to scrap funding for the Interislander was negative “across many fronts”.
”The first thing that bugs me is the current system is on its knees,” he said.
”Something needs to be done and done quickly because these ships are at the end of their lives.”
He said the Government needed to find a bipartisan solution quickly, to stop the issue from snowballing further.
”What we need to do is start planning in a bipartisan way to get our transport in New Zealand running properly and efficiently through a pipeline of projects to make sure that the infrastructure is all getting up, because what’s happening at the moment is everybody kicks the can down the road.”
Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.
