Kiyota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Communities around the country are waiting with baited breath for news about major infrastructure projects, ones that are set to cost a lot of money. The Government's expected to announce the future of inter Islander's Cook Straight ferries this week, after the three billion dollar mega ferry contract was canned last year
due to significant cost blowouts. Meanwhile, a reporter has revealed a lack of confidence in a French contractor's forecasts for the five point five billion dollar city rail Link in Auckland. The company has execs flying out this month to address those concerns. There's apparently a fifty percent likelihood the November twenty twenty five completion date will be met later on
the Front Page. Transporting New Zealand's policy and advocacy lead Billy Clemmens is with us to discuss why the industry is on tenter hooks over the upcoming decision around the Cook Straight ferries. But First Public Transport Users Association chairperson Neil Robertson is with us to discuss the City rail link. Neil what have we heard about the state of Auckland's City rail Link.
The City rail Link is always a little bit of a worry because it's always there's always some concerns about budget overruns and the time it takes to actually get the thing finished. You know, when will it be actually finished and will be finished on time? And I think Auckland is a really keen to get this thing up and running and get to use it and also get to use the rest of the railway system without all
the disruptions and things that go with that. I think there's a lot of conjecture at the moment as to whether it's going to be a kind of over budget.
But Shawn sween you always warned us that once the whole deal was done and built, it was a lot of the other little infrastructure that goes into the tunnel that it can actually cause problems, which is what happened in the Crossrail problem project in London, where the project was finished on time, on budget, but all the extra sit signaling and wiring and whatever else that they required in there actually took it way off budget and way
over time. So there is some anxiety about that at the moment.
I think, yeah, well, a press release from CRL just a few days ago said critical rail network upgrades being delivered before CRL opens in twenty twenty six. So it does sound like it's still convinced of this twenty twenty six completion date. Is that a pipe dream?
Though?
At this point?
Do you think, Well, they actually can't tell you for sure because they have us think that. I think it's a call it a P fifty or something, which means that it's fifty percent chance that it will be open actually on time on that time, And I think that's about as much as they can give you at the moment. It could run a little bit over that, but it might actually might actually make it. Yeah, why has.
It taken so long for this one project to be built? Like nearly a decade under construction for three point five kilometers seems a bit ridiculous, doesn't it.
It is an awful long time for a short There's a couple of things too. That one is the lack of a skill in New Zealand. We don't have a pipeline of these sort of projects going through the New Zealand system, and so we actually have to import a lot of expertise and we have to sort of innovate a little bit with various other people. So there's a lot of people who are sort of learning to get to work together. But the other thing was COVID actually did actually take quite a bit out of this project
and caused lots of delays. COVID actually was quite disruptive. Otherwise, it's actually come along quite smoothly. I've actually walked through it myself and seen it, and it is a good I have done a good job of it. It's a great tunnel.
Because of the City rail Link, Auckland's rail network will be closed for ninety six days in twenty twenty five, starting this month, across the entire summer period. Does that feel like a bit much?
Yeah? It does, and it feels like it's been going on forever. The narrative is that the Aukland rail system is going to be rebuilt because it hasn't been touched for many, many years. It's actually not altogether true, because the entire system has got new sleeper's, new rail, new ballast,
new signals. What is really happening in reality is that the trains that they have for the Auproand rail system actually require a higher standard of track than New Zealand has had in the past, and so what Kyrail have had to do is to increase the standard of the track to be able to take the trains that we use in Auckland without causing too much damage to the
railway lines. If the line is not properly drained and kept even and a level in all places, and the railheads ground down with a grinder, they will have a problem called rolling contact fatigue. And I don't know if you remember, but back in about twenty twenty one, I think it was the system actually found that out and that's why they had to replace virtually all the track in Auckland, or not all of it, but a lot of track in Auckland. Because you get rolling contact fatigue
on your track, you have to replace the line. So they're actually that's what they're doing, is they're rebuilding the standard of Auckland so that we'll guard against rolling contact fatigue. Another solution would have been to actually have had trains, perhaps like the Wellington system, which actually don't need this high level of standard, and then we'd have less of
the disruption. The disruption has actually sort of been compounded because it's you know, they learned about the rolling contact fatigue. Latterly they've replaced all the tracks, so we had a disruption. Then now they're going to have to go back and do it all again properly, so that it's actually is their of mitigation against that problem, far more than any any other city in any other part of the world
that has had to put up with. But hopefully if they do do it all, and they do do it properly and they keep the maintenance up, Auckland will have a first class railway.
And presumably it's going to be quite hot over the summer period as well, when we know what happens when the tracks get hot.
If they do this maintenance properly, there will be less problems with heat buckling, and so that should actually mitigate a lot of that as well. One of the things that we found in Auckland is it that you know, there seem to be problems when there was unpredicted problems,
things like points failures because they got some shonky equipment. Also, the wind blows a little bit too much and then we get a shortening out of some of the wires and things, and these are the sort of things that they really have to guard against and they've really got to put more time and effort into actually getting up and running properly. And so you know, again, all I can say really is hopefully they will, because they haven't to date, but hopefully they will, and hopefully all these
things will be mitigated. But it's an awful lot to ask of the Aukland people. My concern always is how this will affect patronage on public transport, because public transport users obviously want to have good quality public transport and don't want to be forced back into using cars. And one of the things that people don't realize actually thirty
percent of our population actually rely on public support. That's the young people, the elderly, disabled people and people on low incomes, and there are a lot of people who actually don't like to drive as well. So without a good public transport system, you're actually forcing people into a car dependent kind of a transport system. And that's not what we want. We want to have good public transport and it should be made available and usable as much
as possible. And these these disruptions are executively the antithesis of that.
We need money will help us pay the ring. Customers not coming here because they're not coming. No matter how much it's been you know, twenty thousand on promotion, two one hundred thousand on promotion. People are not coming. You usual heard no noise. He's going to get worse.
Well, the CRL is costing billions of dollars in businesses in Auckland's CBD have been affected. And it's only again, like I say, three point five kilometers. By comparison, Sydney built a sixteen kilometer twin tunnel under its harbor in just seven years. So do you think this CRL is going to be worth it in the end.
Oh, the CRL will be worth it in the end. As I say, in New Zealand, we don't have the same sort of level of expertise because we're not doing it as commonly as other people do. They're businesses that were affected that that was a debut. All of those businesses should have actually been compensated, and that should have been front loaded into the cost of the whole deal because they just came in and they started disrupting all
these businesses and the businesses had no comeback. But ultimately, when it is I honestly believe that it'll come into its own and people will probably forget about the price.
Well changing tax slightly. But there's been a lot of headlines in recent weeks about NZTA wanting to see councils hit new revenue targets for public transport. Some councils have suggested that that could see fees rise seventy percent in some areas. What's happening here and are those fair rises justifiable?
No, fair rises are never justifiable. You've have to have a look at what public transport is there for. As I say, it's there actually is an absolute service for those that need it, but it's also there as a service to the public, and it's also there to actually get people out of cars, to reduce congestion on the roads. It's actually there to actually reduce greenhouse gases. It's actually there to actually provide a healthier way of getting about
the city. And as soon as you actually start to actually put targets in the farebox, you're actually going to become counterproductive. If you want to probably earn a little bit more money, maybe reduce the fear slightly and you might get a little bit more patronage and therefore you might get a little bit more money. You increase the farebox take and you start getting less passengers and you
just can't get beyond that. You know, there's only so much you can actually take through the farebox of public transport before you actually are starting to just sort of disincline people to use it, and then you're going to get the offshoots of greater congestion, less productivity due to that, more road damage. It's a silly game to play. Basically, public transport should be as free as possible and we should be encouraging as many people to use it as possible.
Thanks for joining us now. New Zealand is finally expecting an announcement about the future of its Cook Straight ferries to discuss, we're joined now by Billy Clemens, Transporting New Zealand's policy and advocacy lead. First off, Billy, when news broke that Nicola Willis was canceling that mega ferry contract, what was the industry's first response, the.
Position of Transport in New Zealand and our road freight company members was that the government made the right decision to terminate the Iris mega ferries project. Look, it was definitely a tough call and only some really significant sunk costs involved, but what we'd seen in that project was just a series of cost blowouts, and if anyone's interested, I really encouraged them to check out the time frame
put out by the government guarding that Irex projects. You know, to start in November twenty eighteen with an estimated price of you know, seven hundred and seventy five million, although that's you know, business case figures can can fluctuate a bit, but then to end up in February twenty twenty three or at the end of the project closer to three billion. I think it was just the fact that unfortunately that
project had sort of lost its way. I think that the cost blowouts were continuing, and you know, there's there's the guvernment was getting advice from Treasury and Ministry of Transport that there were serious concerns around the management of the project and whether it could be effectively delivered, and
so I think that that was the right decision. And also I think that the road freight industry had been concerned, you know, from the beginning of the project that it was spending a lot of money on two very large vessels, but ultimately when you've only got two operating, unlike the three that we've got at the moment, that introduces a sort of risk to resilience, Whereas if one of those vessels needs to go out for scheduled maintenance or an
unscheduled event, that really only leads you with one vessel operating. So that was another concern that our members had, as well as the management of the project and the overall cost.
So there's an announcement due this week on the ferries project by the government. You're hoping for more than two.
I think that that would be optimal from from our position. However, there's obviously currently two services operating across the strait, and so our position has been looked. We're not locked in particularly to one particular decision. I mean, whether it's a service still operating as an SOE or you know, support
for another private operator coming in. Our primary concerns that look so, so long as there are multiple vessels operating, from our consideration, you know, from our position, we'd really like that to be several vessels at least operating on a competitive service, so that we avoid a situation we end up with a monopoly across the strait. Because we all know that in that monopoly situation, you can end up with higher prices in a less satisfactory service for businesses and consumers.
In the year it's taken for the government to decide on a cheaper alternative. Art has run aground. Ken we Rowl's chairman retired early and there have been calls for Willis to resign. Do you think it's good enough that we've had to wait a year for an alternative?
Yeah, I've certainly got some sympathy for those voices saying it's been a long time. However, overall we're reasonably satisfied with the process that the government's gone through. I think it getting that independent Ministerial Advisory group with some pretty smart commercial operators there to provide some good solid advice.
But the government also asked Ministry of Transport to go and do some substantive advice sort of looking at the long term requirements across the Strait that we're able to contribute to. So I think that, you know, whereas it has been a delay and there has been some stress involved for our members crossing the Strait and you know, wanting to support their staff and members operating moving live stock across the Strait for example, that hasn't been ideal.
I think it is appropriate that the government's taken some time to make sure they get this decision right, and we're really hoping that when we get this announcement that the government's going to be able to have a pretty firm action plan in place so that we can get these vessels operating as soon as possible, because I think it was appropriate that some time was taken and that some good advice was obtained.
As the government committed to rail and able ferries, and.
That's something that we'll work through. There's a whole bunch of options on the table. The Minister of Advisor and Group has given advice to the government about procurement and will work our way through that in due course.
Do you think the first will let you.
Not to It's not a conversation we've got into. There's a Minister of Advisory Group we put in place as soon as we came to power. The report's been generated and given to us at the end of last week. That needs to be digested by the shareholding ministers. But what you can be assured about is that we're going to get the right ships on the cock straight ferry.
Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters. He let it slip that the government will decide on the ferries by today. I guess that's a bit of a relief. And also he's been a long advocate of making sure that those fairies continue to have rail enablement. That's a relief, isn't it.
Yeah. I think from our perspective, this issue of rail enabled fairies which sort of allows them to you know, rail those rail wagons to be effectively driven straight onto vessels versus rail compatible that situation, where are you going to you get rail wagons taken off their tracks and loaded on to ferries. So look, I think that from an overall supply chain perspective, it it is important to
see rail compatibility. I think that Transport and New Zone has been less concerned about rail enablement simply because that does add an element of cost to a project. And you know, we're our viewers. So long as you've got some rail compatibility and the ability for rail to continue to play the important role that it does, particularly around you know, bulk cargo and right, that isn't time sensitive.
And I think we've heard some reassuring comments from the government about the fact that they will continue to be some rail compatibility, if not rail enablement.
The Prime is so yesterday didn't really reveal any more details, but he did say that the option or the announcement will be cheaper than Labour's i REX project. Are you satisfied with whatever the government's decided to do a It'll be a good decision and not one that's been done on the cheap and we'll have to replace sooner rather than later. I suppose if that's the case, would you be happy with that?
Yeah, Frankly, we're going to have to wait and see with the announcement. I think that you know what we will be focused on, will be holding the government to account on is look, is this going to deliver a safe, resilient service that still ensures competition across the Strait so
you don't hit up with that monopoly operator. Yes, So we'll wait and see along with our members and other supply chain partners, and we'll certainly be holding the government to account on how they deliver the project, because it is it's really essential. I mean, it's thirty billion dollars of for eighty year, equivalent to about seven percent of new Zealand's GDP, so it's essential there's an action plan for how these new vessels are going to be rolled out.
Well, the Cook Straight is essentially an extension of State Highway one and Hay and it's really important not only to get people across from one island to the other, but freight.
Yeah. Look, look we've been saying this a lot. You know, our chief executive Dom Classie, it seems like he's been asked for comment on the ferries almost as much as he is on some traditional roading issues this year. You know, it's a big deal and I think that you know, yeah, whether you're a passenger and you're using that service or whether you're someone who's relying on getting the ninety three percent of goods in New Zealand transported by road, it's
really essential. I fig that what we've been hearing from some of our operators with particular concerns of those transporting livestock because obviously that's particularly sensitive cargo and if you end up with delays there then you can end up with some real animal wealthier risks and also operators are carrying you know, refrigerated cargo are the time sensitive stock. It really starts to impact our members's road freight operators. You know, truck drivers can only works a certain number
of hours per day and per week. Soon as you end up with the delay and they're parked up, it means that essentially hit the d allowed working hours, so you have to provide for relief drivers and all that just results in delays and costs for consumers that no one wants to be dealing with.
Thanks for joining us, Billy, Thanks.
So much, Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot enz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.