Unbelievable…
Government won’t reveal cost of new Cook Strait ferry plan
The government has at last unveiled a plan for replacing the Interislander ferries – almost one year after it scrapped Labour’s project.
Under the new arrangement, just announced at Parliament, the government will set up a new Crown-owned company to purchase two new ferries, to begin operation in 2029
Nicola Willis has not revealed the cost of the project, saying it is “commercial confidential” while negotiations are underway, but are “expected to be much less” than the previous scheme.
…so after a year of a stupid virtue signal knee jerk to cancel the iRex Ferries, National can’t tell us their cost, whether or not they are rail capable or what the fee to break the original contract will be.
This is another clusterfuck of ideological idiocy regardless of the cost, just like their Military Boot Camps and the inadvertent shut down of the construction industry by cancelling public home builds.
Labour negotiated an excellent deal, we needed to open that price, National came in and decided tax cuts for their donor mates is more important than basic infrastructure.
They can’t even get their story straight 12 months after cancelling the deal!
At some stage this incompetence can’t continue to be rewarded with your support!
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Based on value for money and not having an outcome they should be sacked. This CoC is full of shit and are biding their time till the next financial year with the books in a mess and money spend on their pet projects including our big tax cut we all got and the landlords dosh that help rents drop, more bullshit.
‘Nicky No Boats’ Willis’s incompetency was obvious pre election as was Luxon’s….appointing her as Minister of Finance ffs is yet another example of how hopelessly out of depth he is…
We know she has done a lot of dumb things but this depth of
hopeless clusterfuckery is a
sackable offence .. .It is spiteful economic vandalism of the worst kind….
Shooting the mouth off for no reason…no research.. no backup plan…no cancellation penalty consideration…no due diligence ….no fucking nothing…
The media should do their job…that is… constantly highlight every inch of their idiocy… find out the cancellation fee cost…demand how they will cope with increases in population , tourism and cargo crossings and the added costs and dangers of not having rail enabled ferries..
They need to hound her and Luxon out of office because they are a total waste of taxpayer’s money!!
Im seeing $5 billion and 2031 delivery .For those that think other wise just look at the blow out in the cost of trans gully and the holiday hiway which were never correctly costed by previous NACT government .Also the 2 year late delivery which is another nact trait .Thats if we even get these slow boats from china .
Willis has a mandate that she took to the electorates who voted her in. Some may not like it but that is the mandate we now have to work with.
As long as the incoming Toyota ferries meet the minimum requirements for about twenty years it could give us some breathing room. For instance can state highway one support a 50% increase in the population, can the ports.
10 years ought to be enough time to rejig the network so we can begin the process on introducing a purpose built cook straight ferry link.
We need some cool heads. Willis is under the pump hard and these decisions can not be made quickly. Last thing we want is another Wahine Disaster. The government has allready lucked out twice with the Aratera and Aotearoa groundings. They can not be allowed to test their luck for a third time.
There was no mention of the ferries before the deluded voted this disastrous Coalition of Chaos into power….
Willis and Luxon have brought all of this on themselves by promising ridiculous sums of money to landlords ,and therefore real estate agents, and an ineffectual tax cut so the supposed ‘stretched middle’ can buy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and go to a movie rather than eat Tip Top and watch Netflix ….people should go back and watch the tapes of those two talking their garbage during the election campaign…
Stripped back, they are both, fundamentally, stupid people, who should never have been allowed the reins of power.
Both are gutless wonders… cutting and running whenever they stuff up …which happens with monotonous regularity.
Willis stating that she has ‘delivered’ on the ferries, when clearly she hasn’t, is yet more utter delusional bullshit. …where are these ‘2nd hand Corollas’ that she was going to find?? ….answer?…they don’t exist…..more brain fart stupidity.
When you have a completely impractical line up of people like Willis, Luxon, Seymour and Peters, expect a lot more clusterfuckery, and even more vast sums of taxpayer’s money being squandered.
Rents continue to risenz voters are admitting it was a mistake to let labour go.
Liar liars your pants are on fire.
Hipkins now says they were not going to accept the price increase so why was it kept quite. The whole event was an example of no matter how much tax Labour got in they are not good at managing it.
A bit like the Transmission gully PPP national did aye Trev it blew out
Thanks Trevor. Don’t overlook the fact that the break fee is rumoured to be at least $300m, the sunk cost for Kiwi rail is rumoured to be $1b. Note the word rumoured because Willis and Luxon and now Peters will not supply the true figures.
Just as they have today, they say commercial confidence, bullshit, they have had 1 year and probably several million dollars and all they have come up with is 2 smaller ferries to replace the existing 3.
No costs available, no pretty design picture, no certainty on rail enabled or not.
Just a new company to be set up, no time given for the legislation to enable this company.
So if you think Labour was poor watch this space.
Answer the simple question, can you fit 2 adults and six kids in a Toyota people mover, then answer this simple question, can you fit six kids in a Toyota Corolla.
The answer is bloody obvious.
And yet people like you think Willis and Luxon are financial genius’s.
I would suggest to you that they are financially and numerically illiterate.
Add Brown to the equation and it gets worse.
well said
I see you are still deflecting .Remember we wouls have been sailing the new boats by 2026 instead we will be shitting every crossing till 2031 at least as this party never delivers on time .Labour will be back in before than and will have to clean up the mess again just like trans gully and the hiway to warkworth
The terminals were not built. There is no way Labour’s boats would be sailing anywhere for years to come.
Idiot the terminal work was under way and no boats stopped it .Just look at the mess now at picton .And the boats were coming in 2026 so plenty of time to get the work done .The reason for the blow out was the gouging by the national party run construction companies once again trying to fleece the tax payer .No boats and the skin head gang leader would have been better to reveiw those building contracts and kept the ships which were a bargain .But NO they just went on a bull in a china shop rampage to destroy NZ as quickly as they could .Thats the one thing they will be sucessful at fucking NZ
The ferries aren’t safe. And we don’t have deepwater tugs to rescue them either. Pity the crew, at least I can choose not to use them.
No they were going to manage it not cancel it
Im seeing $5 billion and 2031 delivery .For those that think other wise just look at the blow out in the cost of trans gully and the holiday hiway which were never correctly costed by previous NACT government .Also the 2 year late delivery which is another nact trait .Thats if we even get these slow boats from china .
And the attempt to pacify Winnie by making Him the Minister for Rail.
You couldn’t make this shit up!
Chippie may well be right – Winnie might pull the plug on or round the time the socially awkward EeeOrr Seymore gets his turn at an 18 month look-at-me stint
Pull the plug! pull the plug!! Frakin mug
Winnie just signed his death warrant
Well, this is his last rodeo
A bit like the Transmission gully PPP national did aye Trev it blew out
Once again spot on article.
The worst financial performing government in our history.
Based on Tricolas performance she could be the Minister of spin and perhaps be an actor or prop for lords of de flies.
Perhaps she could get Lester Levy in to “cook the books”?
He’s fucking good at it!
Maybe it’s the Tories belief that the economies going so far down the gurgler that no one is going to afford to travel anymore and hence, no need for any ferries at all?
100% correct
Luxon and all his clingon’s will be voted out, but not soon enough.
The polls are suggesting the idiot swing voters that put this lot in have painful buyers remorse.
One thing done wrong was once the contract to build those ferries set it shoulda been cast iron, no backing out. Labour/ kiwirail/contractor shoulda made sure if that come hell or high water.
How do you do that with the current government that just says this is what we are doing regardless of current law and contracts.
Just look at all the housing and hospital and school contracts that have been arbitrarily cancelled.
Then add the biggest, the social contract with NZ that says Government will govern with the best interest of all it’s citizens in mind.
True but there are still legal obligations that they have to follow, if put in place. At least, I think that there are. The law is the law. They can change it but not easily or swiftly.
and the cost of that in this case may well be a billion dollar .Dont forget the construction companies may well come looking for compensation for their cancelled contracts as well as the ship builders .
Well, I guess they didn’t have a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel after all. Soooo fuckin dumb. PPP anyone? Where is Winston Peters when you need him surely he at least believes in rail.
Where was LUXON when the non anouncement was being announced ? Once again no where to be seen .Mind you he is thinking its time to throw willis under the bus or on this case send her down with the ferries .
EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY WE’RE GETTING BETTER AND BETTER – F Spencer
going forward – passenger only ferries
going forward – student debt
going forward – rest home care forcing family homes being sold
going forward – high electricity causing pulp mill closures
going forward – 1 in 100 year floods every few years
going forward – emergency housing at motels
going forward – trans rights
going forward – Luxon avoids even talking to journalists.
going forward – highest child poverty rate in the western world
going forward – 87 public hospitals with 1107 beds
going forward – 78 private hospitals with 1911 beds
going forward – per capita GDP makes NZ the 29th wealthiest country in the world
WAY BACK THEN – sigh
1980s – rail enabled ferries
1980s – fully funded tertiary
1980s – rest home care not costing inheritances
1980s – abundant electricity from think big
1980s – 1 in 100 year floods about every 100 years
1980s – sensible state house building program
1980s – beauty contests
1980s – Muldoons number listed in Wgtn phonebook
1980s – universal family benefit
1980s – 344 public hospitals with 30645 beds
1980s – 173 private hospitals with 6157 beds
1969 – per capita GDP made NZ the 6th wealthiest country in the world
thanks for the reality check
It’s been over a year since the election – when are we going to get a government.
Good luck with that.
People on Twitter are trying to get #noboatsnicola trending.
Est half a $billion IReX contract break fee. This is a worse debacle for NoBoatsNicola, than Labours lite rail (229mil) and harbour cycle bridge (51mil) projects combined. Why didn’t she just go with the original, since not replacing the ferries was not an option, then going with the option already settled on, would allow any hiccups to be blamed on Labours planning. But now any hiccups will be on her, and her govts head – despite trying to distance it, with fiscal envelopes and establishing a procurement company and support officials to work with stakeholders and appointing Winston as Minister for Railways. In her powertrip wisdom she got rid of what had been settled on, and replaced it with pie in the sky – and Seymours Ministry of Regulation must be going into convulsions at the added bureaucracy of it. First master dealmaker Luxon agreeing to the treaty principles bill, and now finance guru Nicola flushing half a $billion down the IReX toilet.
Luxon has washed National’s hands and made Winston solely responsible for the project.
What a Lilly Livered Skunk!
thats very polite of you
Vote National!
Vote anyone but National. Even though the service life of the current ferries is up in 2029, thanks to chaotic CoC cluster cockups, don’t expect to see any replacement ferries this decade. Plainly National just doesn’t know how to do this, and will be leaving it for Labour to tidy up.
News room have a story saying $4 billion is going to be the starting price
How come the media are not baying for the stupid womans blood ,if she was a labour MP they would be demanding her resignation as would Luxon himself even though he does not have the balls to front the fake news conference
I would have thought Luxon would be in charge of this .He has been telling us for 3 years how great he is and how he is the king of mergers and big business deals .
Should he not be negotiating the purchase of the two bath tubs .
But instead he is showing he is a load of bull shit .
His record on negotiations since becoming PM is dismal one only look at the shit coalition he put together .He is now stepping aside and letting Peters take over because neither he nor willis is capable of getting it done .
ACT and NZ first are now clearly leading the government of NZ .
god help us .
I can hardly expect the Prime Weakling that is Luxon sacking the Incompetent minister of finance(Who Holds No Degree in Economics, Accounting, Finances or even perhaps Mathematics) who thanks to her “Diddling of the Financial Books” managed to give Luxon and so many other landlords a Tax break and for Luxon personally no need to pay a Sales tax on those rentals he has sold to date.
But then the Wealthy and Sorted Part-time prime minister hasn’t sacked ANY Senior MPs in HIS Coalition government. Maybe because to sack the senior ones would mean him holding onto the Singular port-folio of a prime minister comes to an end.
Luxon may claim to have ‘every confidence’ in those MPs in the coalition but there could well come a day when he needs to Admit He Has Failed this Country and the MPs of this coalition admit so as well.
The Holier Than Thou attitude reeks of Arrogance and I doubt Luxon knows how to admit defeat or failure even when it came to almost taking a National airline in the Great Leap Backwards whilst he was CEO.
Lets face it with Luxon but he is prime minister on Paper Only. He hasn’t been exactly a credit worth representative of this country even whilst National leader. He is after all when it comes to so-called leaders National the “best they can achieve whilst scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of a leader who is ONLY Temporary but one that John Key can control…” After all it’s likely John Key still controls National and Luxon is just his ‘lap dog’.
I do now wonder as to how many building contracts will be awarded to those with close National Party links ??!!!! And lets call it the Bank Of Mum and Dad.
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