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Buying publicly owned rail-enabled ferries to replace the ageing Interislanders has the backing of voters according a new poll commissioned by the Maritime Union of New Zealand and released exclusively to Stuff.
Almost half, 48%, were in favour of publicly owned rail-enabled ferries, despite the extra cost involved, while just 10% supported publicly owned ferries that were not rail enabled.
While 15% supported having partially privatised ferries that are not rail enabled and 26% of those polled were unsure.
"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,β Maritime Union NZ spokesman Victor Billot said.
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The government is yet to reveal its plan for replacing the ageing and troublesome Interislander ferries after it kiboshed the iRex project late last year due to cost blowouts.
The costs had run up mostly due to the port-side infrastructure required to accommodate the ferries that had been ordered.
The poll was undertaken by Talbot Mills between 2-14 October. It included an explanation of the extra cost of replacement ferries were they to be rail-enabled.
Only 10% back National & ACT's idea for non-rail ferries
β Clint Smith (@ClintVSmith) October 14, 2024
Meanwhile, 10 months after scrapping the ferry plan, there's still no firm replacement & costs keep rising
Probably time for Willis to get on the blower with Hyundai & get those rail ferries builthttps://t.co/Ij2LMs5GEw
β The efficiency gains of being βrail enabledβ is thought to add 10-20% to the overall cost to the ferries/infrastructure,β part of the question read.
βAs Iβve previously said we intend to make further announcements this year and that remains our intention,β Finance Minister Nicola Willis said on Monday.
When Stuff asked if there was any chance the replacement ferries would be rail enabled, Willis didnβt directly address the question.
βIt is absolutely the case that the Cook Strait requires ferries that are able to take rail freight and that is our intention,β Willis said.
However that answer would not rule out the option of βroad-bridgingβ where containers are taken off trains and trucked on to a ferry.
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union has estimated that would add $150-200 to the cost of shipping and could take up to three hours longer to transfer a trainload of freight.
βWe require a ferry service that can integrate effectively with our rail service because our rail service has an important future in distributing freight from the North Island to the South Island,β Willis said. βThere are a number of ways of achieving that.β
Stuff has previously reported that coalition parties are in disagreement as to how to solve the ageing ferries problem.
Act is a major proponent of privatisation and would like to see a mixed ownership mode for Kiwirail which runs the Interislander ferries, while New Zealand First is a major supporter of rail.
"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," Billot said.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told reporters at his annual conference he believed the current ferries had much more life in them if maintenance was undertaken properly.
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βWeβve got plenty of time to build new ferries because theyβve got a longer life than theyβve claimed,β he said.
βWith the right approach we can fix this problem. Iβm not concerned about it.β
βUnions 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?,β Billot said.
The Finance minister has promised to announce her intentions for replacement ferries by the end of the year.
