Minister for Rail Winston Peters on the $671m scrapped ferry fiasco

RNZ News

20 hours ago

Winston Peters and the Interislander ferry
Photo:
RNZ
Minister for Rail Winston Peters says talks with shipbuilders for new replacement ferries are progressing well, defending the cost of cancelling the iReX ferry project.
The coalition government
cancelled the previous contract for two new ferries
after the budget blew out to nearly $3 billion.
A final $144m payment to previous contractor Hyundai brought the total project costs to $671 million.
Peters said that was "only fair", saying the "decision to cancel Project iReX was never a reflection on Hyundai".
Labour's leader Chris Hipkins said Peters was the minister who had signed off on the iReX project in the first place.
"It's somewhat ironic that he's now the one casting around to blame other people for a project he set up."
Photo:
RNZ / Marika Khabazi
He said the decision to cancel the project was a "knee-jerk response by [Finance Minister] Nicola Willis".
"Her recklessness has now cost New Zealanders hundreds of millions of dollars... hundreds of millions of dollars of public investment have been flushed down the drain and New Zealanders have nothing to show for it."
Hipkins added that Willis should have never cancelled the contract without figuring out how much that was going to cost, and without figuring out how much the alternative was going to cost.
"They still haven't told New Zealanders how much their alternative is going to cost," he said.
"We need a reliable inter-island ferry service. One that can take cars and trains and passengers from one island to the other.
"It's a vital connection between the two major islands of our country. It is part of the state highway network. It's part of the rail network.
"We need to do it properly and get it right."
Labour's transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere said taxpayers had forked out more than half a billion dollars with still no ferries to show for it.
"We need a strong, resilient Cook Strait. What this government has done is they have wasted a whole pile of money on cancelling a botched ferry deal, and at the same time the existing fleet is going to continue to limp along."
Utikere said the original plan was to have ferries delivered by 2026, but New Zealanders now have to wait until 2029.
The Aratere was due to be retired on Monday.
More to come...