Let’s get this completely straight.
KiwiRail negotiates a sweetheart deal for 2 Rail capable Ferries for $550m at a time when boat builders were desperate for work.
It was a sweetheart deal because it gave us an upgrade to Rail that would be crucial to lower our emissions targets and to build capacity into the Cook Strait for more economic growth.
The cost ‘blowout’ was the necessary and predictable upgrade to the Ports. Labour should get a kick in the arse over how this managed to be a surprise to everyone, but the cost to upgrade the Ports was always going to be a necessity.
National get in and immediately kill the deal by rat-fucking KiwiRail so their Trucking Industry Interests are protected.
Nicola Willis wanted the virtue signal of killing the deal off without seeming to bother working out what to do next. It was more important to her to look like she was slashing Labour’s spending without working out the true cost of that.
She claimed to want a Toyota Corolla instead of a Tesla.
By killing the deal, it meant we were on the hook for a $300 million penalty.
With the grounding of the Aratere, National have had their hand forced and they will now buy 2 ships which MUNZ argue will cost $1.2billion because National are now buying at the top end of the market.
Remember, the 2 Ferries will be smaller, not Rail capable and will keep the existing freight capacity rather than any expansion!
So Nicola Willis will be spending over $1.5billion for a Toyota Corolla that’s worse than the car you currently drive and you all think that’s good management is it?
National dumped the Ferry deal to virtue signal while ratfucking KiwiRail for the Trucking industry.
AND NOW after fucking this over so badly for bullshit virtue signal points, National are eyeing up privatising the whole thing after being the ones who destroyed it…
Government refuses to rule out privatising KiwiRail amid revelations contractor spend tops $8m
The Prime Minister’s refusing to rule out privatising the embattled KiwiRail or carving off Interislander.
It comes after revelations of eye-watering contractor spending by the state-owned enterprise which Newshub understands topped $8 million.
…this isn’t Governance, it’s spite!
Remember those days of Richard Hadlee approaching the bowling crease with the words of the advertisement proclaiming “you’re so right, you’re so right, you’re so very very right Toyota”. Unless you are referring to Nicola’s political leanings, these are not words you would ever use referring to her.
Willis is out of her tiny little mind….that is now plainly obvious…no way does she have the intellectual firepower, financial knowledge, practical knowledge, experience, or even learning capabilities, required to understand the complexities of the job to be a good Minister of Finance.
She , in a moment of extraordinary hubris ,has managed to checkmate herself in a single move, without anyone else playing….. wow!…i mean.. WOW!!…There’s room for dancing upstairs.
All she knows, and does, is cut, without any cost benefit analysis, no long term benefit analysis, or quid pro quo analysis…..well … any fool can do that!!
She was shown up badly during the Queenstown finance debate during the election campaign when Grant Robertson and James Shaw ran rings around her. Handed out a master class . If anyone is in doubt, go back and check out the footage. It’s alarming to think that she is now the Minister of Finance…. N.Z. was well and truly asleep…. And they will pay big time for their yeah nah she’ll be right attitude.
I shudder to think what she would have been like if National had been in power during Covid. I think the country dodged , not a bullet , but a cannonball, there.
Having said that, thicko Bill English was no better, and he’s back in behind the scenes again ‘advising’ Willis. …the blind leading the blind. N.Z…R.I.P.
yep and we will still need to future proof the ports at either end .We will end up spending 5 billion not forgetting the 430 mill already spent then the beak fee on top of that .We are nearly 1 billion on the way already .What a stupid woman
What I don’t understand is why there is any long winded discussion about cancelling the ships. At 2 For $500m they’re a bargain, and if the cancel cost is half the contract price then no-one in their right mind should be cancelling them when they’re a saleable asset at the end fo the build.
I see they have three options.
1. Cancel the contract and pay the astronomical break fee = dumb
2. Alter the design to take 10% off the size (complex) so they can fit in the existing ports and safe navigation plans.
3. Build them anyway and if they can be made to fit in the interim, great, otherwise sell/lease them to Stena ferries to take Polish truck drivers across the Baltic.
No use in the Baltics, wrong rail track gauge (standard 4’8). Would need a complete reconfiguration of the train storage deck and loading ramps. Huge cost to then reconfigure the ferries back to the NZL narrow (3’6″) rail track gauge.
Reconfiguring the ship doesn’t come into it – Any rail deck would just be used as a vehicle deck – as Aratere does for a lot of the time…
All I know is if I’m heading across the strait im using bluebridge
Mmmm. Good luck. Check their record out. Given the number of sailings they do compared to Inter Islanders you may find they are no more reliable. The white noise has concealed some facts that the media can’t expose because it would ruin a good story.
I’ve booked twice for a cancellation and a delay.
Inter Islanders 4 bookings for 1 delay.
The South island don’t want a tunnel or working ferry.
So National are going to privatise rail ie. sell it their mates who will play jiggery pokery with the share price for a few years. Then the business will be declared unviable and the government will have to bail out a strategic asset. Depending on who is in power at the time the taxpayers may pick it up cheap but more likely the tax payers will be stiffed all over again on the repurchase.
Ships are built by shipbuilders, not boatbuilders.
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