Ferry fiasco hangs over PM’s South Korea trip

Sort­ing out the mess his Fin­ance Min­is­ter has made of the inter­is­land fer­ries deal should be the key out­come of the Prime Minister’s vis­it to South Korea, says the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ).

The can­cel­la­tion of the deal, which has been under nego­ti­ation for eight months now, is expec­ted to cost the tax­pay­er up to a half a bil­lion dol­lars – a cost that comes on top of anoth­er half a bil­lion dol­lars of sunk costs in the pro­ject.

MUNZ Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says the cur­rent state of limbo cre­ated by this fail­ure is unac­cept­able. “It is astound­ing that more than a half a year after the Fin­ance Min­is­ter can­celled this vital pro­ject there has been no res­ol­u­tion.

“It is bad enough that the gov­ern­ment clearly had no plan B for the only rail-freight ser­vice we have on Cook Strait — the fact that we are still wait­ing for final can­cel­la­tion or rene­go­ti­ation of this deal is mad­ness.

“Nic­ola Wil­lis’ ferry fiasco isn’t just cost­ing us money, it has put the kibosh on the biggest eco­nom­ic deal between South Korea and New Zea­l­and in years, and risks sour­ing rela­tions between our coun­tries. 

Prime Min­is­ter Luxon needs to use his much-vaunted inter­na­tion­al busi­ness exper­i­ence to sit down with the South Koreans and find a way through this expens­ive fiasco as soon as pos­sible.

“We have to get on with repla­cing the fer­ries we have. At best Kiwirail will be able to eke out anoth­er five years of ser­vice from them; it can take longer than that to design and build new ships. If the gov­ern­ment doesn’t settle this can­cel­la­tion soon, or rene­go­ti­ate to get Hyundai to build new fer­ries, we will run out of time.

“That’s a huge and urgent threat to freight cus­tom­ers, our eco­nomy, and our inter­na­tion­al repu­ta­tion.

“No mat­ter what hap­pens, the reck­less decision to can­cel the build con­tract, just days before the steel was to be cut for the hulls, has put New Zea­l­and in a ter­rible pos­i­tion.

“We need the Prime Min­is­ter to call time on the situ­ation, front up on the cost his gov­ern­ment has put on us and work to get a con­tract struck for pub­licly owned, rail-enabled fer­ries imme­di­ately. 

The fool­ish decision to can­cel a pro­ject that was more than six years in the mak­ing has cost us too much already.”

MUNZ is New Zealand’s largest Mari­time uni­on and is affil­i­ated with more than 200 mari­time uni­ons inter­na­tion­ally.