Only 1 in 4 people believe the government were right to axe the iRex ferries

It’s interesting how different wording can make a statistic seem mild or damning. My headline here maybe makes it clear which side of the debate I fall on; One News’ headline on their own poll read a little differently:

Of course, there’s no good way to present this poll result for the government, but hightlighting that half of the country disagree with NZACT’s decision here sounds about right; after all, half of voters didn’t vote for them. You’d expect roughly the same amount to disagree with them over scrapping what Luxon attempted to frame as Labour’s budget blowout. But such framing from our news media belies the extremely low approval rating that Nicola Willis’ first decision as Finance Minister has received from the public.

Perhaps it’s because of the extraordinarily high sunk cost already put into the project. Or maybe it’s that that much of the bill came from portside infrastructure that will need upgrading anyhow, whether we build these particular ships or not. It might be the breaking fee that we’re contractually committed to paying now, or the insult caused to South Korea by Luxon’s poor handling of the announcement. And it’s almost definitely got something to do with Willis announcing that we should instead look at buying “secondhand corollas” before we all discovered as a nation, far too late to be helpful, that that’s not really a feasible solution at all.

Can you tell Luxon only has one South Island MP in his cabinet? I can. Matt Doocey is singularly holding Te Waiponamu on his shoulders like Atlas (the Titan, not the right wing think tank). Perhaps if he’d had a few regional neighbours to back him up, he could have impressed upon the Prime Minister the importance of the InterIslander not just to the mainland but to the entire country. Shipping is about to get really expensive round here. And it wasn’t exactly cheap to begin with.

But I suspect National had other voices in their ear. Namely the trucking and air industries, who in a fantastic act of foresight, have shot themselves in their own tyres on this one with their anti-rail campaign. Both road and air have positioned themselves in opposition to rail on this one; I doubt it’s a mistake that nearly all the people selected by National to provide this government with advice on this matter had long histories of running airports.

Because while the roll-on, roll-off rail link was needed for efficiency so that our two-ship fleet would be able to load and unload smoothly and rapidly, this must have seemed disgustingly pro-train for the lobby that has spent decades stripping value and respect from this publicly-owned enterprise.

Certainly National believed so; what are all these trucking and road lobbyists paying for if it’s not to kill such rail-centric proposals? While our fleet would have depleted by one ship, our rail-enabled ship number was set to double to two, with both iRex procurements promising to continue our investment in our national rail line, this was an insult to trucking that our bought-out government couldn’t stand.

Without iRex, shipping costs are set to soar, congestion from extra trucks needed will clog and damage our roads, and shipping goods from Christchurch to Auckland or reverse via land will become financially unviable.

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins has unfortunately suggested the most sensible course of action for Luxon and his government: to see if the contract for the original iRex ferries can be revived. I’m sure this will incentivise National not to do this, and to continue to commit to this disastrous decision that will damage New Zealand’s shipping scene and roads for decades to come.

Committing to a badly-made decision in an attempt to save face is never a good long-term strategy. But I’m sure National’s politicians are unbothered by this, as their actions have already secured their members future careers as lobbyists outside of Parliament (or rather, inside Parliament now that Gerry Brownlee has restored lobbyist access with less scrutiny than before).

This poll reveals that one in four people in this country have awful foresight, and many of them are sitting in Luxon’s Cabinet.