Mega Ferry deal was sabotaged for Trucking Industry – this is National Party crony capitalism at its most harmful
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
Willis is utterly incompetent. That is blindly obvious altough I’m sure Bob has her picture on his bedroom ceiling.
Or maybe she is an evil genius . Which is worse ?
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.
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.
If the opposition were on their game this would be a scalp.
Nicola Willis a Ruth Richardson clone, horrid, bitter, spiteful woman and the woman responsible for the demise of thousands of kiwis.
Fucking cunt is your Nicola