Mountain Tui: When is an independent expert or advisory group “independent?”

Cross posted from Mountain Tui‘s substack post.

OPINION: Yesterday, 1News reported that the Government’s “independent” advisory group had recommended Kiwirail offload its ferries to another entity.

Except this wasn’t entirely new news at all, besides that it came formally from Nicola Willis’s advisory team.

TVNZ is under significant cost pressure, and earlier this year, after expressing strong discontent with our media, David Seymour said he was going to review TVNZ’s value for money proposition. The timing of their broadcast also doesn’t appear to allow deep dives.

From my perspective, the National Government has been slow-leaking its intent over the last few months.

Why do I say that?

Let me elaborate. I think that their intentions and plan could not have been clearer since the start and there have been a number of ‘tells’ in this regard –

Their first and biggest tell was cancelling the fixed price contract, that would have delivered next generation, future-proofed, rail ferries appropriate for the Cook Strait, within appropriately seismic terminals, by 2026.

• Yes, 2026. Not a typo.
• The Government had already been told that the ferries were nearing end of life, and maintenance costs and issues would increase.
• Ministers had already been informed this was a top shelf deal unlikely to ever be replicated again and cancelling it would put Kiwirail at risk of huge penalties.
• Not to mention an inability to carry on with its ferry and freight operations for long, to state the obvious?
• Their response, in effect – Let’s cancel it, and incur a half a billion dollar loss upfront, and deal with the $300million in penalties and other costs later.
• Does that sound logical? While Willis and Luxon claimed they had no clear plans, in my personal opinion, it sounded like a pretext for a larger objective.
• What have they been on record supporting over the last few months? Here’s a spoiler: privatizing assets and services

The second giveaway was appointing an “independent Ministerial group” to advise Willis on what should be done.

• Her delegates, I mean, advisors are paid $2000 a day and within two months of being appointed, had already racked up $80,000 in taxpayer costs.
• Extrapolating out an additional 3 months so far, we can reasonably assume they’ve costed taxpayers a minimum of $200,000.
• Not as much as Bill English’s $500,000 easy money with a Kāinga Ora report he didn’t need to talk to Kāinga Ora for though – you know, Kāinga Ora, the other crown entity with big capital assets on its books. Guess what’s happening over there? (No prizes for correct guesses, I’m afraid)

Thirdly, in February 2024, it was reported that the Government’s Ministry of Transport, under Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s directive, was investigating the ‘hypothetical exit’ of Kiwirail from the ferry business. Part of that review included options such as relying on the private operator Bluebridge.

Then, after the Aratere was grounded, it brought a lot of attention and publicity to Kiwirail again. We saw Government ministers come out forcefully to criticize Kiwirail even before the grounded ferry was towed. And well before, anyone reliably knew what had happened.

• With a scowling tone, Simeon Brown announced the Government was “disappointed” with Kiwirail’s asset management
• On social media, I also started seeing messages flooding channels with – “Kiwirail is incompetent. We should let Bluebridge run it.”
• This is all despite the Government knowing Kiwirail had undergone maintenance for the steering system in the last few months, a responsible and good industry asset management standard. And that it was clear that maintenance issues and costs would increase as the ferry aged. Tell number four was in play.
• The Government also hurriedly assured us it had just recently received the advice from its ‘independent’ advisory group.

Number five: This video – enough said.

I am sure the irony is not lost on some of us who might see someone like John Oliver or The Onion’s editorial team blast out a headline:

“New Zealand Government cancels Kiwirail’s new ferries. Months later, New Zealand Government says Kiwirail has no new, capable ferries and MUST divest from the ferry business.“

If only this was satire.

On Thursday, National and ACT’s associate, the tobacco money funded Taxpayers Union, co-founded by Chris Bishop’s father and where Casey Costello came from before working for tobacco, I mean, Government, came out with a poll that showed most New Zealanders support Kiwirail selling off ferries to a “private operator.”

If I was you though, I’d write to the Prime Minister, local media, your friends, family, and your MP to tell them New Zealand is tired of corporatising our assets. This Government appears to be birthed with privatisation in mind, in my opinion, and the Coalition’s calls for “PPP” i.e public private partnership, since forming Government has been palpable and insistent.

Kiwirail was privatised once before. It was brought back for a reason.

Also, the Tory privatisation dream failed. Why should we follow suit? Anyone?

The “independent panel” reveal has been used by this Government many times now – Kāinga Ora, Kiwirail, Fast-Track. And there are more ahead.

To be very clear – Governments can and should rely on independent expertise. This is a large part of why Select Committees are important, and shouldn’t be sidestepped without a valid, contextual reason. Say, for the 14 repeals under urgency this Government made in its 100 days.

However, when expert panels are made up of people like former National Party MPs, donors’ Directors, former National Party Prime Ministers etc. and who seem to echo this Government, then it is time news media stop repeating the words “expert” or “independent.”

Aotearoa New Zealand deserves better than this. So does the world.

Did you know?

Aratere is New Zealand’s only rail-enabled ferry, meaning it can transport trains across Cook Strait. In effect it’s an extension of the Main Trunk Line and forms an integral part of the rail network. The Aratere, along with its sister ferries Kaiarahi and Kaitaki, carried billions of dollars of freight every year

RNZ