Cook Strait ferry decision will have long-term consequences - Maritime Union

OPINION

The Government’s decision to not fund the purchase of the new Interislander ferries makes no sense from a practical point of view.

The current ferry fleet should have been replaced a decade ago. Now the country will likely be in limbo for years to come, despite the fact a contract for a good affordable option had already been signed with a South Korean shipyard.

We had a good price locked in for new rail-enabled ferries and now we are going to the market for used ferries, well past their “best-before” date.

This short-sighted decision-making undermines our economic resilience and leaves one of our most important domestic trading routes vulnerable.

There has been a concerning lack of leadership from the Government, which seems to be able to cancel things, but offer no constructive or realistic alternatives.

We can assume from what been said by Finance Minister Nicola Willis that the Government’s preferred option will mean purchasing second-hand replacement ferries, or in her words, “Toyota Corollas”.

That sound bite is going to come back and haunt the Government. Ferries are not family cars and the Cook Strait is not a suburban road.

The second-hand ferries that will likely be considered will not be hybrid and will have a far larger carbon footprint, hurting our ability to deliver on our climate goals and reducing the resilience of our already strained transport network.

Not only that, but they won’t be rail-enabled, which will engender significant negative outcomes because freight will have to be double-handled at either end.

This will create more congestion at a busy port because of the extra time and space taken to load and unload at both ends. The new ferries would have solved this issue permanently.

This Government failure will mean more trucks on roads and less freight on rail.

Safety is also a serious concern, as we have already seen the current end-of-life ferries experience technical failures in a dangerous and unforgiving environment.

As KiwiRail noted this week, if they do not find post-2010 ships with modern systems that allow for redundancy, they will be lumbered with the same risks with older vessels.

The consequences could lead to a repeat of the Kaitaki emergency in 2023, when a ship lost power and drifted towards the coast.

It’s not just the ferries that are the problem.

KiwiRail told the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee at Parliament this month that the Picton terminal is at the “end-of-life” stage too.

The decision to move the location of the proposed new Wellington terminal to Kaiwharawhara was because of political and stakeholder pressure, and this decision led to spiralling costs due to seismic and land stability issues.

As others have pointed out, none of this gets us any closer to a solution.

We have now been put back by years, and may end up with an inferior option for ferries and terminals that will end up costing more rather than saving money in the long run.

The decision doesn’t make any sense from a financial perspective. The contract for the ferries was fixed at a bargain price, and it would have been a sound investment for decades to come. Ships are not getting cheaper to build. Nor are ferry terminals.

Contrary to claims the upgrade will cost too much, analysis from the Council of Trade Unions shows over the lifetime of the assets, the cost of upgrading the Interislander ferries is only about $11 per New Zealander a year. By contrast, the landlord tax cuts will cost Kiwis $139 each year.

Now KiwiRail – due to the Government funding decision – will be liable for a large sum just to break the ferry build contract. We will be paying for ghost ships – an expensive investment in thin air from a self-proclaimed “infrastructure Government”.

It’s hard to say who will benefit from this scenario. Maybe the well-connected road transport lobby, but even trucking owners will realise deep down this is going to be a lose-lose proposition for the industry and the country.

The Government’s priorities are irresponsible and out of step with their own stated commitment to growing the economy.

It’s time the Minister of Transport fronted up and followed through on his pre-election commitments to prioritise the future of the Cook Strait as a key transport link.

Craig Harrison is National Secretary of the Maritime Union of New Zealand.