Latest news with #iRex
Scoop
15 hours ago
- Business
- Scoop
Govt Gets It Wrong With Cancelled Ferries
The cost of cancelling the iRex ferries shows the wastefulness and short-term thinking of the Coalition Government. 'We could have had new ferries by next year and millions of dollars left over to spend on critical infrastructure if it weren't for this irresponsible Government,' says the Green Party's spokesperson for Transport, Julie Anne Genter. 'This decision to cancel the contract for new ferries has cost us $671 million. This is a missed opportunity and a massive mark against this Government's credibility. 'For context, that amount of money could have funded the electrification of the main rail line from Waikanae to Palmerston North, or built thousands of much-needed homes. 'New Zealanders should have been taking those new ferries this and next year - instead we've had the Aratere taken out of commission, and more trucks on the road as a result of retiring our only rail-enabled ferry. 'The Hyundai order for two new rail-enabled ferries for $550m was one of the best deals the country ever signed up to. This Coalition Government tore it up and will likely be forced into signing a deal that leaves us worse off in the short and long term. 'The Government must stop cutting corners and commit to funding a transport network that works for people and planet,' says Julie Anne Genter.
Scoop
12-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Concerns About Ongoing Cook Strait Ferry Issues
Press Release – Maritime Union of New Zealand Mr Findlay says the Union had flagged the dangers of removing a key vessel from service, and the current situation showed that KiwiRail needed to rethink their Maritime Union of New Zealand says the Cook Strait ferry service is struggling, with the entire Interislander fleet currently either suffering breakdowns, wave damage or being taken out of service for audit. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Carl Findlay says the vital transport link is hanging by a thread, with ongoing disruption. He says the Aratere has once again experienced technical issues, following engine shaft problems in Picton on Wednesday evening that caused several hours of delays. Crew members and passengers had to remain on board before being able to disembark in Wellington. Over the previous weekend, Kaiarahi had its bow door damaged in rough seas, which will be welded shut to allow it to continue to operate until a scheduled dry dock in Singapore in July. Kaitaki is being pulled from service this weekend for a Maritime NZ audit. KiwiRail announced in May 2025 it would remove the rail-enabled Aratere ferry from service in August 2025, and is now seeking to cut 70 jobs for MUNZ members in the deck and catering departments on the Aratere. Mr Findlay says the Union had flagged the dangers of removing a key vessel from service, and the current situation showed that KiwiRail needed to rethink their plan. He says technical problems with Cook Strait ferries extended to the private operator Strait Shipping, and had their roots in a failure to invest in modern shipping and infrastructure by the Government and private operators. Mr Findlay says the cancellation of the iRex project by Finance Minister Nicola Willis was going to cause years of disruption as the iRex ferries would have been entering into service over the next year or two. New ferries announced by Minister of Rail Winston Peters are now not expected until at least 2029.
Scoop
12-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Concerns About Ongoing Cook Strait Ferry Issues
Press Release – Maritime Union of New Zealand Mr Findlay says the Union had flagged the dangers of removing a key vessel from service, and the current situation showed that KiwiRail needed to rethink their Maritime Union of New Zealand says the Cook Strait ferry service is struggling, with the entire Interislander fleet currently either suffering breakdowns, wave damage or being taken out of service for audit. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Carl Findlay says the vital transport link is hanging by a thread, with ongoing disruption. He says the Aratere has once again experienced technical issues, following engine shaft problems in Picton on Wednesday evening that caused several hours of delays. Crew members and passengers had to remain on board before being able to disembark in Wellington. Over the previous weekend, Kaiarahi had its bow door damaged in rough seas, which will be welded shut to allow it to continue to operate until a scheduled dry dock in Singapore in July. Kaitaki is being pulled from service this weekend for a Maritime NZ audit. KiwiRail announced in May 2025 it would remove the rail-enabled Aratere ferry from service in August 2025, and is now seeking to cut 70 jobs for MUNZ members in the deck and catering departments on the Aratere. Mr Findlay says the Union had flagged the dangers of removing a key vessel from service, and the current situation showed that KiwiRail needed to rethink their plan. He says technical problems with Cook Strait ferries extended to the private operator Strait Shipping, and had their roots in a failure to invest in modern shipping and infrastructure by the Government and private operators. Mr Findlay says the cancellation of the iRex project by Finance Minister Nicola Willis was going to cause years of disruption as the iRex ferries would have been entering into service over the next year or two. New ferries announced by Minister of Rail Winston Peters are now not expected until at least 2029.
Scoop
12-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Concerns About Ongoing Cook Strait Ferry Issues
The Maritime Union of New Zealand says the Cook Strait ferry service is struggling, with the entire Interislander fleet currently either suffering breakdowns, wave damage or being taken out of service for audit. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Carl Findlay says the vital transport link is hanging by a thread, with ongoing disruption. He says the Aratere has once again experienced technical issues, following engine shaft problems in Picton on Wednesday evening that caused several hours of delays. Crew members and passengers had to remain on board before being able to disembark in Wellington. Over the previous weekend, Kaiarahi had its bow door damaged in rough seas, which will be welded shut to allow it to continue to operate until a scheduled dry dock in Singapore in July. Kaitaki is being pulled from service this weekend for a Maritime NZ audit. KiwiRail announced in May 2025 it would remove the rail-enabled Aratere ferry from service in August 2025, and is now seeking to cut 70 jobs for MUNZ members in the deck and catering departments on the Aratere. Mr Findlay says the Union had flagged the dangers of removing a key vessel from service, and the current situation showed that KiwiRail needed to rethink their plan. He says technical problems with Cook Strait ferries extended to the private operator Strait Shipping, and had their roots in a failure to invest in modern shipping and infrastructure by the Government and private operators. Mr Findlay says the cancellation of the iRex project by Finance Minister Nicola Willis was going to cause years of disruption as the iRex ferries would have been entering into service over the next year or two. New ferries announced by Minister of Rail Winston Peters are now not expected until at least 2029.
Scoop
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
The Aratere And The New Zealand Main Trunk Line
Government-owned Kiwirail is supposed to be presiding over the New Zealand Main Trunk (Railway) Line, from Auckland to Invercargill. As such it runs a ferry service (The Interislander) between New Zealand's North and South Islands. We are being told by Kiwirail (and see today's report on Radio NZ) that the only rail-enabled roll-on roll-off ferry – the Aratere – will cease operations in August this year, five years before its putative successor ferries will commence operations. At the same time, rail is being revitalised in the South Island, with the Hillside workshops redevelopment. (And see the following on Scoop last Friday: New Hillside Workshops Officially Opened and Rail Workers Celebrate Hillside Workshops Rebirth.) How can this be: simultaneous expansion and contraction of New Zealand's trunk railway under the governance of the same government? There is a simple conceptual solution, which covers both the short run and the long-run. Kiwirail could relocate the Interislander's South Island terminus to Lyttelton, the rail-accessible port of Christchurch. Indeed this should have become policy after the dramatic 2016 Kaikoura earthquake which destroyed both railway and highway around Kaikoura, halfway between Wellington and Christchurch; both road and rail main trunk. Not only is the present route precarious, but also it is so much 'greener' for both road and rail traffic between the North Island and the southern 85% of the South Island (by population) to travel by sea between Wellington and Christchurch. That is, the bulk of interisland vehicle travel undertaken directly by sea is more sustainable than a journey by sea between Wellington and Picton followed by a long 340km Picton to Christchurch land journey. The suggested solution is that The Interislander should operate out of Lyttelton from about 2030, leaving Bluebridge to service the Wellington Picton route. If that were to happen, then the Aratere could stay in service until 2030; because the new facilities suited to the new ships – at least the South Island facilities – would not have to be on the same site as Picton's present rail-ship facilities. Last year I wrote to MPs from all five parties, before it was too late to cancel the shipping order for the cancelled iRex project, including the Labour MP for Lyttelton. Only the Green Party bothered to reply to me. And even they were unenthusiastic about the idea of the Interislander shifting to Lyttelton; their lack of interest came across as more a matter of political priority than as an argument about economics or sustainability. Maybe I am stupid, and I simply cannot see the obvious reasons why a shift back to Lyttelton cannot happen. But I really think we should have a national conversation about the restoration of ferry services between Wellington and Lyttelton; and with the current consciousness about the future of rail being a very important stimulus to that conversation. After all, for over 100 years, before 1960, Wellington to Lyttelton was the essential 'main trunk' link between the two islands. The change-around happened around 1960 because the previous Wellington to Picton service had become so run-down that something had to be done about it. And that there just happened to be a relatively new railhead at Picton. After 1960, the Lyttelton service was doomed to fail when it became a one-ship service in 1968, after the tragic demise of the then state-of-the-art Wahine. Why don't we have national conversations anymore? Everything seems to happen as a fait accompli, narratives driven by unimaginative back-office accountants with short time horizons. And mainstream academics and media simply accept this under-democratic state of affairs. We are still suffering from the infrastructure backlog that escalated in the early 1990s when Finance Minister Ruth Richardson forced many of New Zealand's unemployed and underemployed to emigrate, especially to Australia; all in the name of 'fiscal responsibility'. Some of those people who left for Australia just as its banking crisis was unfolding – especially their children – are drifting back to New Zealand in the 2010s and 2020s as '501' deportees (see Product of Australia, Stuff December 2019, and noting in a chart that more than half of the 501s deported to New Zealand from 2015 to 2019 were aged 26 to 40). Those young (mainly) men could have been building New Zealand; instead, too many became criminals in Australia. And the New Zealand economy regressed for the best part of ten years (from 1985), while the rest of the world was progressing. That period is the source of the now-entrenched Australia New Zealand differential in living standards. Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Keith Rankin Political Economist, Scoop Columnist Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s. Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like. Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
