December 11, 2024 • 9 mins
Winston Peters is tip-toeing around whether New Zealand First will get the rail-enabled Cook Strait ferries it campaigned for.
The Government has announced it'll set up a new company to procure new Interislander vessels - and has made Peters the Minister for Rail.
It's almost a year since the coalition scrapped Labour's contract for buying two mega-ferries that would have joined up rail across the two islands.
Nicola Willis says the new ferries will be smaller and rail-capable, but not fully rail enabled.
Peters says he's conceded nothing.
He says he's taken on railways in the past - and dramatically turned them around - and people should ask the Maritime Union if they have confidence in him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Plenty of questions have been left unanswered this afternoon on
the future of the inter Islander ferries. Finance Minister Nicola
Willis has announced there will be two new fairies, but
won't say how much money has been set aside for
the project or whether the fairies will be rail enabled.
A new current company will be established to procure the
new ferries to begin service by twenty twenty nine. Remember
(00:21):
the other ones would have been in operation inside the
next couple of years. Winston Peters has been appointed the
Minister for rail Minister. Thank you for being with me
on the show. It's great to have you here. How
much money? How much have we saved as taxpayers on
this deal?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Oh look, those questions, as I told the media today,
cannot be answered in the first hour or two. Have
taken over a new portfolios and Minister for Railways. But
I've done it before and turned the railways around between
seventeen and twenty and so we're setting out again and
by our first of ward will be consolting with all
the people that are involved, so we ensure that we
go forward. We've got all the motions we need to
make proper, sound and frugal decisions.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Will it be deeper than the previous cost of three
billion odd.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, the previous cost that actually was said by Treasury
to be when we got to government heading towards four
billion and more so. Yet it'll be massively cheaper than
what we're inherited.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
How can you say that when you don't know what
the cost will be yet?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Because I've got some experience in this matter, know bit
about the markets and know bit about commerce. The last
thing you do is tell the market what you're going
to pay. That's not how you do business. We want
to get the best deal for the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
We just have to trust that you'll be able to
do that.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, this is not asking them to trust you. That's
the wise way of going about it. If you're going
out there using taxpayers money, hard ended as it is,
it's paid for by taxpayers. You your job is to
use it wisely. And now I'm going to do that
as I did when I was last Minster of Rails
and will we turn things around quite to many all
the tunnels up north, all seventeen tunnels were lowered. Will
(01:58):
the will stop workshop, but Hillsli Workshop and Needin was revived.
It's operating now all these things were done back.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Then, will the overall cost, including the cost the ports
might be wearing that everybody else involved might be wearing,
be lower than the overall cost of the previous project?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Way way lower.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yes, do you have confidence in KBI rail and are
you now the minister in charge of kbrail.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Signed the midicine in charge of q rail. That's true.
And the second thing is I'm going to have a
chat downtown and see what they've got to say for themselves.
But this was a project which I instructed them to
go out in May of twenty twenty and buy two
fairies at the price of four hundred point one million dollars.
And look what we ended up with, four billion dollars
(02:44):
called a treasury because what they ended up doing was
to buy fairies which were only twenty percent percent of
the cost, and all the rest was infrastructure that nobody foresaw.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I know. But the thing is, you still don't know
what the cord the infrastructure the ports side will be
either for the new fairies that you don't know how
much will cost.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I'll have a serious idea on that, because I know
what kind of fury we're looking.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
For and what kind of fury.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that one that will do the job probably and
go into the next few decades and a sound proposition
which needs to be up and going in twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Will they be bigger than the current theories but smaller
than the ones we won't get?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh? I was possibly talking to nid meters.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, so bigger than the current ones.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, but not the ones that they had ordered.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Those were massive and they required massive infrastructure, which no
one was told about until all of a sudden in
twenty twenty one we found out that a four hundred
point one million dollar project had blown out and was
building costs and we had no way of turning it
around if we kept it going.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Which brings us back to Kiwi Raw. We're going to
be buying two ships for more than we would go,
two smaller ships for more than we were going to
pay for two bigger ones, and Kiwi Rail is the
organization that stuff this whole thing up, and you still
have confidence in them.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Did I say a conference in them? Do you know? No?
I didn't, and so I didn't answer your question. I
said I'm going to go. I don't have a tap
them before I start going to put enough off my head.
I want to hear this oide of the story.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Are you worried about whether issues If we've only got
two ships and they are two hundred meters long, one
goes out of action, we're becoming a bit vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well no, you see, people aren't looking at all the
permutations of Ford decision making. I am, and that's why
there are things in my forward planning which I have
never been mentioned publicly yet. Because to go to the
market you have to have a plan, and that plan
is going to be formulated with speed over the next
few months.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
When can we see the report from the working group?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, well, you'd have to trail on the official information
that can see how you go. The question, manly is
whether there's any commission sensitive information there that you can't
get because that would be contradictory to wise decisions making
and Vice's business.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
On ownership, can you rule out private investment or a
mixed ownership model.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I have not talked about privatization, the politic mixed ownership model,
like all other aspects would be in the mixed stivety considered.
But let's see them go out there. It'll be actually
when we're making decisions knowing what we're talking about, rather
than guesswork and acting like an ad armed octopus, which
the previous regime was tossing money around all over the
place and no one knew what the costs are going
(05:36):
to do.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Minister, what's taken so long? It's been a year since
these ferries were canceled. It's been six months since the
report came in from the working group. We haven't even
got a procurement company set up yet. There's not a
director being appointed until next year. What's been going on?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, a article four companies going to be set up
very quickly. The shareholding ministers are the Minster Finance and
me and we'll get on with the job. You're asking me,
after four hours in the job, to explain what's going
on in the past. Well, i'll let you know when
I found out all those things of myself.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Why are you suddenly the Minister of rail.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Because I had the job and turned well around, turned
railways around. You recall in twenty seventeen they've been run
down and being shut down all over the place, and
I turned that around. So I think that the Minister's
confidence that the person did it probably one time, can
do the same job a second time. Whose idea was
but this is not my first railway rodeo?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Whose idea was it? What do you mean to come
back to bring back the Minister of rail.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Ah, it was just a wise suggestion that somebody made.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Would that somebody be you, Minister?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, you know as well as I do that modesty
is my middle name.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Camera doesn't talk about how sweet it is only on me.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well you're coming on here, you're learning real fast.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Hey, on the on the right, because rail is obviously
I mean you are now the Minister of Railways. A
cheap ship is not a rail enabled one, right, So
have you conceded that point to your colleagues?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No, I'm not considered anything at all, because, as I say,
your job when you get a job as a minister
to find out everything, and if there's got you know,
fifteen angles to it, then find out all fifteen, not
just act on three of them. You might have found
out about.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
But you've got a fiscal inote reportedly nine hundred million dollars.
You're not going to get rail enabled for that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well again that's not true. See that's what was ledd
to TV three. You could perhaps ask General linchfi you
pepped on putting that stuff out.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's false as that number is false?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Is it false? Yes, of course it is.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yes, So what what's the real number? More or less
than that?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh? See, No, I knew you're going to go there,
but you just specified that. I told you.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm going to say the question without I can do
be transparent if.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Your fair, fair enough, But here's what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
But when you're talking about the market, the last thing
you go to the market and say is this is
what I'm better pay.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I understand that. I understand that, But.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
The your money has carefully you're own.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
The problem the public has is that we've been dicked
around on this for years now, and it feels like
we're being dicked further down the road because we don't
know how much we're going to be paying for these things.
We don't even have an entity set up to buy
them yet, and we've been told trust us, we'll fix this.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
No, I'm not doing that. I'm saying that I have
taken railways on in the past and dramatically turned around,
go and ask the unions, going to ask the maritime
unions and all those people whether they've got confidence I
can do this job.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Probably would you be happy to go down in history
as the railway minister who killed off rail enabled links
between North and South Island.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Look, I was just telling the media today, your colleagues,
if they were listening, that a man called Voguel built
more railways and ten years addy than we did for
this one thirty years. We've got a can do attitude
and we're going to make sure that rail is a
key part of our future infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Minister, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate
you coming on the program. That is the newly appointed
rail Minister Winston Peters. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Plenty of questions have been left unanswered this afternoon on
the future of the inter Islander ferries. Finance Minister Nicola
Willis has announced there will be two new fairies, but
won't say how much money has been set aside for
the project or whether the fairies will be rail enabled.
A new current company will be established to procure the
new ferries to begin service by twenty twenty nine. Remember
(00:21):
the other ones would have been in operation inside the
next couple of years. Winston Peters has been appointed the
Minister for rail Minister. Thank you for being with me
on the show. It's great to have you here. How
much money? How much have we saved as taxpayers on
this deal?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Oh look, those questions, as I told the media today,
cannot be answered in the first hour or two. Have
taken over a new portfolios and Minister for Railways. But
I've done it before and turned the railways around between
seventeen and twenty and so we're setting out again and
by our first of ward will be consolting with all
the people that are involved, so we ensure that we
go forward. We've got all the motions we need to
make proper, sound and frugal decisions.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Will it be deeper than the previous cost of three
billion odd.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, the previous cost that actually was said by Treasury
to be when we got to government heading towards four
billion and more so. Yet it'll be massively cheaper than
what we're inherited.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
How can you say that when you don't know what
the cost will be yet?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Because I've got some experience in this matter, know bit
about the markets and know bit about commerce. The last
thing you do is tell the market what you're going
to pay. That's not how you do business. We want
to get the best deal for the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
We just have to trust that you'll be able to
do that.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, this is not asking them to trust you. That's
the wise way of going about it. If you're going
out there using taxpayers money, hard ended as it is,
it's paid for by taxpayers. You your job is to
use it wisely. And now I'm going to do that
as I did when I was last Minster of Rails
and will we turn things around quite to many all
the tunnels up north, all seventeen tunnels were lowered. Will
(01:58):
the will stop workshop, but Hillsli Workshop and Needin was revived.
It's operating now all these things were done back.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Then, will the overall cost, including the cost the ports
might be wearing that everybody else involved might be wearing,
be lower than the overall cost of the previous project?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Way way lower.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yes, do you have confidence in KBI rail and are
you now the minister in charge of kbrail.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Signed the midicine in charge of q rail. That's true.
And the second thing is I'm going to have a
chat downtown and see what they've got to say for themselves.
But this was a project which I instructed them to
go out in May of twenty twenty and buy two
fairies at the price of four hundred point one million dollars.
And look what we ended up with, four billion dollars
(02:44):
called a treasury because what they ended up doing was
to buy fairies which were only twenty percent percent of
the cost, and all the rest was infrastructure that nobody foresaw.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I know. But the thing is, you still don't know
what the cord the infrastructure the ports side will be
either for the new fairies that you don't know how
much will cost.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I'll have a serious idea on that, because I know
what kind of fury we're looking.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
For and what kind of fury.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Is that one that will do the job probably and
go into the next few decades and a sound proposition
which needs to be up and going in twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Will they be bigger than the current theories but smaller
than the ones we won't get?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh? I was possibly talking to nid meters.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, so bigger than the current ones.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, but not the ones that they had ordered.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Those were massive and they required massive infrastructure, which no
one was told about until all of a sudden in
twenty twenty one we found out that a four hundred
point one million dollar project had blown out and was
building costs and we had no way of turning it
around if we kept it going.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Which brings us back to Kiwi Raw. We're going to
be buying two ships for more than we would go,
two smaller ships for more than we were going to
pay for two bigger ones, and Kiwi Rail is the
organization that stuff this whole thing up, and you still
have confidence in them.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Did I say a conference in them? Do you know? No?
I didn't, and so I didn't answer your question. I
said I'm going to go. I don't have a tap
them before I start going to put enough off my head.
I want to hear this oide of the story.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Are you worried about whether issues If we've only got
two ships and they are two hundred meters long, one
goes out of action, we're becoming a bit vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well no, you see, people aren't looking at all the
permutations of Ford decision making. I am, and that's why
there are things in my forward planning which I have
never been mentioned publicly yet. Because to go to the
market you have to have a plan, and that plan
is going to be formulated with speed over the next
few months.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
When can we see the report from the working group?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, well, you'd have to trail on the official information
that can see how you go. The question, manly is
whether there's any commission sensitive information there that you can't
get because that would be contradictory to wise decisions making
and Vice's business.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
On ownership, can you rule out private investment or a
mixed ownership model.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I have not talked about privatization, the politic mixed ownership model,
like all other aspects would be in the mixed stivety considered.
But let's see them go out there. It'll be actually
when we're making decisions knowing what we're talking about, rather
than guesswork and acting like an ad armed octopus, which
the previous regime was tossing money around all over the
place and no one knew what the costs are going
(05:36):
to do.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Minister, what's taken so long? It's been a year since
these ferries were canceled. It's been six months since the
report came in from the working group. We haven't even
got a procurement company set up yet. There's not a
director being appointed until next year. What's been going on?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, a article four companies going to be set up
very quickly. The shareholding ministers are the Minster Finance and
me and we'll get on with the job. You're asking me,
after four hours in the job, to explain what's going
on in the past. Well, i'll let you know when
I found out all those things of myself.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Why are you suddenly the Minister of rail.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Because I had the job and turned well around, turned
railways around. You recall in twenty seventeen they've been run
down and being shut down all over the place, and
I turned that around. So I think that the Minister's
confidence that the person did it probably one time, can
do the same job a second time. Whose idea was
but this is not my first railway rodeo?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Whose idea was it? What do you mean to come
back to bring back the Minister of rail.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Ah, it was just a wise suggestion that somebody made.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Would that somebody be you, Minister?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, you know as well as I do that modesty
is my middle name.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Camera doesn't talk about how sweet it is only on me.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well you're coming on here, you're learning real fast.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Hey, on the on the right, because rail is obviously
I mean you are now the Minister of Railways. A
cheap ship is not a rail enabled one, right, So
have you conceded that point to your colleagues?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
No, I'm not considered anything at all, because, as I say,
your job when you get a job as a minister
to find out everything, and if there's got you know,
fifteen angles to it, then find out all fifteen, not
just act on three of them. You might have found
out about.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
But you've got a fiscal inote reportedly nine hundred million dollars.
You're not going to get rail enabled for that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well again that's not true. See that's what was ledd
to TV three. You could perhaps ask General linchfi you
pepped on putting that stuff out.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's false as that number is false?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Is it false? Yes, of course it is.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yes, So what what's the real number? More or less
than that?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh? See, No, I knew you're going to go there,
but you just specified that. I told you.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm going to say the question without I can do
be transparent if.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Your fair, fair enough, But here's what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
But when you're talking about the market, the last thing
you go to the market and say is this is
what I'm better pay.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I understand that. I understand that, But.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
The your money has carefully you're own.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
The problem the public has is that we've been dicked
around on this for years now, and it feels like
we're being dicked further down the road because we don't
know how much we're going to be paying for these things.
We don't even have an entity set up to buy
them yet, and we've been told trust us, we'll fix this.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
No, I'm not doing that. I'm saying that I have
taken railways on in the past and dramatically turned around,
go and ask the unions, going to ask the maritime
unions and all those people whether they've got confidence I
can do this job.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Probably would you be happy to go down in history
as the railway minister who killed off rail enabled links
between North and South Island.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Look, I was just telling the media today, your colleagues,
if they were listening, that a man called Voguel built
more railways and ten years addy than we did for
this one thirty years. We've got a can do attitude
and we're going to make sure that rail is a
key part of our future infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Minister, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate
you coming on the program. That is the newly appointed
rail Minister Winston Peters. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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