Mega Ferry deal was sabotaged for Trucking Industry – this is National Party crony capitalism at its most harmful

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
27
848

Let’s be crystal clear, when Nicola Willis dumped the Mega Ferry Deal. it wasn’t just political virtue signalling that National will be a cost cutter of Labour’s spending (despite then borrowing more than Labour),  National was also rat-fucking KiwiRail for their Trucking Industry donor mates!

Nicola Willis wants a Toyota Corolla version and has promised 2 ships that won’t keep up with population growth or emissions limits.

Sure, Labour should have ensured the physical upgrade of the Ports needed to be done before the ships were delivered, but including Rail is crucial for our emissions and future growth, killing the deal off for the political virtue signal is insane!

The decision to dump the Kiwirail Ferry plan was always about rat-fucking Kiwirail for National’s Trucking industry mates!

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The Engine parts for Cook Strait mega ferries were already built and tested when contract was cancelled, at what point does Nicola Willis start looking compromised in her handling of this fiasco?

Maritime Union of NZ says, ” cost of the new builds could be up to $1.2 billion – more than double the $551 million cost of the vessels for the cancelled iRex project”. $1.2billion seems pretty fucking expensive for a Toyota Corrola doesn’t it?

Include the $200million to break the contract and we are looking at $1.5billion plus the $400million lost in assets plus the over $600m for Port upgrades regardless of what ships we buy.

All of this to ensure National’s trucking industry mates maintain market dominance.

National is ensuring their donor mates are looked after at the expense of the rest of us.

The Right love to hold up Labour’s $120million bike lane that went no where as an example of Labour’s feckless accountability, but this fiasco in the space of a week has blown out cost wise by a Billion!

The most egregious part of this manufactured crisis that National have created here is that they now have the audacity to start pushing for privatisation as the response!

 

27 COMMENTS

  1. No Ada has told us we have been saved from an evil plot. Apparently rail is an attempt to give strength to unions, not a common f’ing sense solution to moving large volumes with less omissions.

    • The common sense solution would be much more use of coastal shipping, especially into Lyttleton to replace freight on ferries from Wellington to Picton then by rail into Christchurch along a high risk, coast-line rail line.

      Coastal shipping has fewer emissons (not ommissions) and more resilience to floods and earthquakes.

      • Except. With trains drop offs can be made all along the route reducing truck mileage. Shipping requires trucks to distribute from a single location.

        • How many places would rail freight be dropped off between Picton and Christchurch? Blenheim is one. Possibly Kaikoura.

          But apart from there, where and how would freight get off the train?

  2. First we will sink the ferries then we will set fire to public housing .Now we have achieved that what will we do with the 100k new tradies the last government trained up .I know, we will throw them on the scrap heap and call them lazy bottom feeder fuckers and cut their dole money in half because they have no job because we fucked the construction industry in the first 6 months .Quite an impressive list of fucking things up we have achieved in our first 6 months .By the end of 3 year term the country will be well and truely on its knees .That will teach you for letting Jacinda save you all from death or bankruptcy .Thats another target we have ,we will send all of those saved businesses to the wall because you were kept afloat by a labour government .You should never have accepted corporate welfare because it was not our idea so now you will pay the ultimate price .BANKRUPTCY.

    • The Coalition have New Zealand on the road/rail to recovery following 6 years of dereliction of duty by the Labour Government, the proof is the shocking financial position/mess they created.Further proof is Jacinda’s flight to stardom,Grants move to Academia and Chippies refusal to step aside.

      • @Bob the first. Here we go again: the blind parroting of election campaign drivel. There was no “shocking financial position/mess”. Our debt to GDP was WELL below the OECD average and way way way lower than the UK, the USA etc. This ongoing lie is getting boring.
        And what’s even more revealing of empty-headed right wing nut jobs who peddle this misinformation is they NEVER say what they would have done in similar circumstances – when we were in lock down biding our time for vaccines to become available what would they have done? Not given any money to businesses, watch them all fold, and watch the employees of those businesses (now with no income) starve to death?!!
        Yeah right.
        The Labour govt was far from perfect, but (1) they saved a lot of unnecessary deaths, and (2) they saved the NZ economy while doing (1).
        Compare that to the ideological clowns we now have who are deliberately sabotaging the economy to facilitate the sort of privatisation programme that other constituencies around the world now bitterly regret enabling.

      • They didn’t leave a shocking financial mess though did they Bob. If what you say is true that makes this bunch of wankers even more irresponsible for giving tax cuts, and borrowing to do so. Get out of your ZB echo chamber and actually try and validate the bs that flows from the mouths of these bought and paid for muppets.

  3. Blinded by nutty far right ideology and bribes….sorry “donations”, this Coalition of Corruption has inflicted lasting damage to the NZ economy.

    Next stop: mass civil unrest, as the slow learners…..whoops, I mean “squeezed middle”, realise they’re worse off under these charlatans.

    • why do these muppets want to ape the us which is a bad performer in all metrics it seems suspiciously like treason or a total contempt for kiwis

  4. I know that some of the major freight companies use rail freight also, in fact, they make sure to have big yards with rail siding so it would be interesting to get some of their opinions instead of the truck association noddy who insists that putting containers from rail to ferry & back to rail is no big deal.

  5. Willis is utterly incompetent. That is blindly obvious altough I’m sure Bob has her picture on his bedroom ceiling.

  6. It is crazy shit, and will result in double or even triple handling of freight, and yes, involve container shipping rather than “roll on roll off”.

    The road transport bludgers have distorted the NZ economy for many years going back a hundred years. In Tai Tokerau (Far North end) where I live the construction of the main trunk line in the 1920s stopped at Okaihau rather than going all the way to Kaitaia–because local tories, MP Allen Bell, and the then trucking lobby ran meetings all round the district and succeeded in getting it canned.

    A rail link from Auckland to Kaitaia would have been quite handy would it not with two state highways going down recently…

    But that is the filthy Natzos for you.

    • Tiger Mountain, FYI
      When I left school 55 years ago I joined the NZR as a civil engineering cadet. My first “job” was being attached to the survey that planned for a proposed line to Kaitaia. Due to the Magamukas it was not a feasable route to extend the line from Okaihou. We then surveyed a KawaKawa/Moerewa to Kaitiaia route and being much flatter, the eastern route was preffered.

      This run into difficulties as the land required was (as we termed it 55 years ago) in native title with multiple tribal owners. After some time and without being able to buy land for the route the line never went ahead.

      So I dont think it was criminal and local tories to blame that stopped the line. More the terrain and land ownership problems. It all got to hard for little reward.

  7. Problem with the Ferries is not the ownership. That can be left in the care of the state. It is the management off the asset that is the problem. Kiwirail is not a good manger of the asset.

    So change the management to a dedicated ferry operator that has a history of good management. There are any number of Scandinavian/British/Dutch/Greek/Australian/New Zealand/etc. ferry operators that could easily run the ferries better than Kiwirail has done or could.

    Simple answer as no privatisation is involved. In fact get rid of Kiwirail management all together and get a proper rail operator to run that asset as well. The PMC cant run a bath, never mind a rail line or a ferry service.

  8. ” Mega Ferry deal was sabotaged for Trucking Industry – this is National Party crony capitalism at its most harmful ”
    Almost exactly correct und Far RIGHT! Except not the most harmful. The trucking-industry-lobbied politicians of back in the day to destroy our world class rail infrastructure to turn many branch lines into pathetic tourist trap rail-trails.
    I drove from Oamaru to Invercargill then to Queenstown on Monday and was aghast at how many huge, heaving truck and trailers there were on the roads. I followed a logging truck heading into Invercargill at 120 kph. The moron class were up its arse tail-gating each other so it would have been impossible to see.
    The weather was appalling with that kind of heavy mist/drizzle brought in off the sea be a stiff sou east wind. It was horrendous driving conditions and as each truck and trailer howled by in the opposite direction it was impossible to see for those few critical seconds after they’d passed. There were literally hundreds of truck and trailer units on the road all going flat out and often I’d come up on three or four units tail-gating each other.
    Meanwhile, from Oamaru to Invercargill, there were no freight trains. Not one that I could see.
    Do you know why that was? I can tell you. It’s corruption. Oily trucking ‘industry’ lobbyists lubricating the arseholes of our politicians. BTW, did I mention the alarming destruction of our roading networks? The ones YOU pay to have repaired. But look! Over there! Nasty housing for hungry oiks!
    @ Countryboy was right. We urgently need to roll our sleeves up and give the rich, fascist, far right politicians the fucking bash before they sell us off to cover over their crimes.

  11. Nicola Willis a Ruth Richardson clone, horrid, bitter, spiteful woman and the woman responsible for the demise of thousands of kiwis.

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