Maritime Union of New Zealand media release: New Zealanders want publicly-owned rail ferries – poll
The Cook Strait ferry crisis wasn’t just a policy failure — it was a political one. New polling shows New Zealanders overwhelmingly backed publicly owned, rail-enabled ferries, even as the Government pushed in the opposite direction.
New polling released today by the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) shows the public wants publicly owned, rail-enabled ferries.
The poll was conducted by Talbot Mills over the period of 2-14 November and asked:
New ferry options
As you may be aware, in relation to the Cook Strait ferries, “rail-enabled” means freight carriages can roll onto and off of the ferry directly rather than requiring unloading and reloading onto trucks as additional handling steps on each side of Cook Strait. The efficiency gains of being “rail-enabled” are thought to add 10-20% to the overall cost to the ferries/infrastructure. The government is now considering three possible options for new ferries. Which of the following options is closest to the one you would support?
The public already made the call
Results showed a clear public preference:
Maritime Union spokesperson Victor Billot says “This shows that New Zealanders can see the terrible mistake the Minister has made in cancelling the new rail ferries and that is only going to get more obvious as the massive costs of this fiasco, like the cancellation fee of up to a half a billion dollars, come to light.
“Rail-enabled and publicly owned ferries are vital to New Zealand’s domestic freight. No rail ferries would likely mean no viable rail system, and privatising would be like putting a toll booth on the strait and sending the revenue overseas.
“Unions want rail-enabled ferries, so do logistics companies including Mainfreight, New Zealand First has just said they want them, and now it’s clear the people of New Zealand want them too. The question is why is the Finance Minister so intent on forcing New Zealanders into a bad deal that nobody wants?”
The hidden cost of getting it wrong
Road-bridging – the practice of taking containers from trains and transporting them onto non-rail ferries adds up to $200 per container cost and takes up to three hours more per sailing. Industry experts have noted this additional cost would price rail out of the north/south freight market.
