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.