Most kiwis blame Willis for Ferry Fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 30th, 2025 - 9 comments
Categories: infrastructure, nicola willis, Unions, winston peters - Tags:

The Transport Unions recently engaged Talbot Mills to poll kiwis on their view of the Ferry Fiasco. The latest results are now in and they are pretty ugly for the Government.

They were asked about the decision by Willis to cancel “the new Ferries contract to replace the aging ferries which had a cost of around $551 million”. 66% of recipients either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the decision. Only 10% strongly agreed and a further 24% agreed with the balance being unsure.

Clearly they agree with Mountain Tui that the Government is essentially replacing next generation, size appropriate, and full functionality Mercedes quality ferries for a Toyota price and is now trying to buy a basic, no-frills Toyota Corolla quality ferries for the price of a Mercedes.

They were also asked if the replacement ferries should be rail enabled AND publicly owned. 54% said yes. 11% wanted publicly owned ferries that were not rail enabled and only 12% wanted National’s preference, partially privatised ferries that are not rail enabled. Support for publicly owned and rail enabled ferries has grown six points from last year, a testimony to the very effective campaign that the unions have run.

Rail and Maritime Transport Union General Secretary Todd Valster has reached out to Winston Peters and said this:

“Voters want ownership and control of this critical infrastructure to remain in public hands and to be rail enabled.

That shouldn’t be surprising – it’s just common sense which is why a majority of voters for all parties of government are backing this option.

If we want the Interislander to work most efficiently and effectively for all New Zealanders, we need it to support rail freight. That’s key to our economic future.

The new Minister for Rail has a real chance to fix the economic and political problem the Finance Minister has created by cancelling the iRex ferries, and it’s clear that voters of every political stripe would back him in doing that.”

And it looks like Peters sees the opportunity to make some political gains on this issue.

Two days in Parliament he gave this extraordinary speech where he said “privatisation” six times and not in a good way.

And yesterday he again went on the attack on Labour and said “there’s been something learnt from the privatisation of a Labour regime that sold BNZ, a part-sale, and went bankrupt; the Quality Inns deal—totally corrupt—the KiwiRail deal that went bankrupt, as well; and Electricorp, which was sold”.

And remember that Peters pulled the pin on the Shipley Government over the privatisation of Wellington Airport.

Looks like he may be positioning himself to do this again. And most of the country will support him if he can provide publicly owned rail enabled replacement ferries.

9 comments on “Most kiwis blame Willis for Ferry Fiasco ”

  1. Adrian 1

    Somewhere in the last week I saw or read, unfortunatly I dont remember where as Im just getting over a glancing blow from Covid but the gist was the reinstatement or upgrading of a rail line to Napier or Hastings is being worked on because the damage caused by logging trucks on the Napier-Taupo road is unsustainable. Who would have thought?

    • tWig 1.1

      Here is one source. I agree, they said the road was not up to it. Perhaps they initially thought the Nats were going to have a comprehensive policy, including council-funded roads, but instead SB had his have 'roads of national significance (significant to the National Party, that is), and took road dollars away from local councils.

  2. Adrian 2

    Thanks tWig, its not the memory so much as the buggeredness while trying to keep working. P.s, dont go farming!

    • Patricia Bremner 2.1

      Rest when you can Adrian. Nasty side effects can come out of that heavy tiredness, as that is your body trying to recover.

  3. Tiger Mountain 3

    For the sake of innocent passengers hopefully this can be resolved before Wahine MkII happens to a powerless drifting ferry in a Cook Strait storm…well done to the unions for polling and keeping this issue in front of people.

    • tc 3.1

      More would blame her if our lazy media explained the obvious but thanks to the unions that job's been done for them.

      Willis is clearly out of her depth and being left to drown at NZ's expense by the hollowmen.

      So it appears to be crash n burn baby by doubling down on Nicola with another portfolio she'll manage about as effectively. They're rubbing it in matey.

  4. gsays 4

    Cheers for this post Mickey.

    For a few reasons.

    Firstly, repeating the observation that our finance minister is way out of her depth.

    These Tories have no idea how to grow anything apart from inequality, witness the Public Service and the economy.

    That Peters, despite his party's many flaws, can hold Aotearoa best interests at heart. I can't see him being bullied or cajoled by a neo-liberal mandarin from Treasury.

    And.. it gives us a glimpse of hope of what is possible. A unifying topic for disparate lefties to coalesce round.

    As opposed to getting outraged by Trumps latest distracting brain fart because that is exactly what they are.

  5. Patricia Bremner 5

    Willis would have to be the worst Treasurer we have had. imo

  6. thinker 6

    66 + 10 + 24 = 100

    No one is unsure. I've never seen that before.

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