Chris Mackenzie: Ferry Holdings Ltd Chair on the new Cook Strait Ferry deal

Rail Minister Winston Peters yesterday confirmed we are to get two new rail-enabled Cook Strait ferries. 

The Government's signed a fixed-price contract with a Chinese shipbuilder and is securing teams to build port infrastructure in Picton and Wellington. 

Rail Minister Winston Peters claims the total cost will come in under $2 billion and delivered on time in 2029. 

Ferry Holdings' Chris McKenzie told Kerre Woodham that while it’s not the Sydney Opera House and the Taj Mahal, the port infrastructure they’re creating is more than fit for purpose.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood. In morning's podcast from News Talks,
I'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
As I mentioned earlier, Rail Minister Winston Peters confirmed we
are to get two new rail enabled Cooks straight Fairies,
expected to arrive in twenty twenty nine, under budget for
less than two billion dollars bargain. Peter said there's real
energy and excitement around the shipbuilding deal between Ferry Holdings
and Guangzhou Shipyard International. I spoke to Faerry Holding's chair

(00:34):
Chris mackenzie earlier this morning. Should the i REX ever
got as far as it did, I want.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
To be careful on Irex because I Rex is a
thing in the past. What I would say about IREX
is that when and I'll be feder mister Peters when
he agreed to the project, it was a smaller project.
The difference between Irex and this project is before we

(01:05):
actually order the ships, we have an agreed infrastructure plan
and I think you've seen the handouts where it's got
what we're doing in Pacton, it's got what we're doing
in Wellington. We then had the ship. The specifications for
the ports are the same as the ship, so we

(01:26):
know that the ship is going to fit into the
little nesting structure that we build, and as a board
we have made it very clear to the staff that
is what we are doing. We are not going to
do anything else. We're going to use what we can
off IREX. And of course, in the context of IREX,
we've used eighty five million plus of the money that

(01:52):
we had spent on IRAQ. So we're keeping the passenger
lounge and picked in and in Wellington, we're keeping the
Dublin Street over bridge or the work that was done
for that, the vehicle marshing, the yards and the railway
yards and Picton and Wellington, and we're also keeping some

(02:14):
of the basic ship infrastructure alongside the wharves for when
the vessels come. Also just we also have to remember
that IREX was a different type of project. They were
going to build new warves in Wellington. They're going to
build new warves further north. We're using existing infrastructure, the

(02:38):
existing infrastructure, there is nothing wrong with it. In Picton,
it's been built for sixty years. In Wellington, the engineers
have told us this, thirty years like left in the
infrastructure that's here. So we've gone back to more basics
and What we're doing in some respects is doing what

(02:58):
they do on roads. Roads reach a certain point and
then they close them for a while, like they did
with the Desert Road last Christmas to completely reseal it,
and it's a very good road now driving through there.
What we're doing with the ships is we're buying new
ships to fit them in. We close the current wharf,

(03:18):
build the wharf to the new specifications, and then from
twenty twenty nine we've got a perfectly functioning into island
ferry and wolf structure.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Is there? Could it be that by cobbling together everything
we're going to end up with the okapi, you know,
the African animal that looks like it's been made from
a zebra and a horse in a giraffe.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
No, what we have been very careful to do is
to ensure that alongside the new vessels, which are an
Uket version of the current k boats that go across
the straits, we have made sure that the terminals will
be up to standard. We are building a new link span,

(04:05):
we're building new passenger loading so passengers will still move
from a ferry terminal onto a vessel a different way
to what they are at the moment where you go
up the ramps and so forth. It will be an
airline style air bridge which will go into the ferry.

(04:25):
So we're actually it's going to be a better experience
that some people are experiencing at the moment from pick them.
For example, there is no link. There is no passenger
gangway onto the back of the k boats, so they
come in at the top vehicle deck and walk into

(04:47):
the lounges. This one you'll come directly into an escalator
and go up to the lounges. So no, I think
we have got something that is it's more than fit
for purpose. But it's not as the Minister is want
to say, you know, the Sydney Opera House and the

(05:08):
taj Mahal, We're not doing that.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
I think when it comes to passenger experience, they want
the fairies to go to get over the cook straight.
I think that's been the main problem with our aging fleet.
So you know, if the Faury can get from point
A to point B without stopping in the middle of
the ocean, I think people will be happy.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
All right. There's two things I say about that. The
first is the existing fairies are and inter island at
the Moment is running on one hundred percent reliability. It
has been now for the last five or six months,
so it's a credit to the engineering that they're doing
and the way that they're seen them are maintaining it.
And the same with Bluebridge. Yes, Bluebridge has had a

(05:53):
couple of issues in the last week or so, but
it's the age of the fairies that we've got. The
new fairies are going to have more power than the
previous fairies. When you've put along side it's like, I
don't remember the old Triumph two thousand and the Trump
two point five. It was the same body, but the

(06:14):
Triumph two point five had more power and so it
moved a lot quicker. These fairies have that extra power.
They're being driven by azipods, which gives the vessel much
more maneuverability, which was a comment that's been made from
time to time on safety within the sounds, so they

(06:35):
have a better propulsion system. They also have three bower
thrusters so that they are able to maneuver a lot
better than the traditional vessels propellers and rudders. So the
vessels are being built with a lot of redundancy into them.
They are also required and we are required to build

(06:56):
now ships that had a return to port capability and
so a kai Take type incident can't happen with these ferries.
They have that extra piece as well, and that you've
got your diesel engines which can also run on alternative fuels,

(07:17):
but they have banks of batteries and so for example,
coming and depict them, you can actually turn your engines
off and burthen picked and using batteries, and the batteries
are charged as the vessels are going backwards and forwards
like a normal hybrid.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Just finally, Winston Peters has said we've saved two point
three billion dollars. How much of those savings will be
lost in cost overruns.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
As far as the vessels are concerned, it is a
fixed price contract, so if anything goes over it's the
responsibility of the shipyard and we negotiated that very hard
with the shipyard. That's what we wanted and that's what
we've achieved as far as the infrastructure is concerned. At

(08:04):
the moment, the Board is and I'll say this, the
Board was not prepared to ask ministers to agree to
sign a ship contract until we were confident that we
were going to have the port infrastructure in place. We
don't want a Tasmanian type situation and so we have

(08:26):
gone through. We have estimates of what the costs are
in both Wellington and Picton and we've made it very
clear to everyone involved in this we are not going
to go above the one point seven that Cabinet has
appropriated for this project. We are making savings as we

(08:49):
go along. For example, in Wellington, we were going to
use the link span that existed under Soulace the Safety
of Life at Sea, there are new measurements and requirements.
It meant that the existing link span and Wellington could
not be used. We weren't going to use it anyway
because we were replacing the waterfront and picked them. What

(09:10):
we have subsequently done, which is actually going to save
us money Rudin have picked and Wellington ordering their own
link spans. We are now buying a link span which
fits into both Wellington and Pickton, so that has saved
us some money. We are also looking at some of

(09:31):
the other For example, if you look at the diagram,
you'll notice that they no longer have the extended elevated
walkway for passengers to get onto the ships. It is
now just going to be at the same level as
the vehicles come in, but not on the vehicle link span,
which will go straight through, as I said, an airline

(09:54):
style bridge, and so that's a lot cheaper as well.
So we are taking costs out even from what we
originally has had.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
In visit, it sounds like you're looking at the project
completely differently from the architects of Irex, like they were
looking at the best, at the best, most amazing, most
incredible project. You're going in with this is the sat
amount of money we've got. We have to make it work.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yes, that's right, And what we are also doing is
making sure And I've said this to a lot of
people in the past few days and they look at
me and think, what am I talking about? This project
is not about two ships in a port. This project
is about infrastructure which enables someone to drive from North

(10:44):
Cape to Bluff in their car, trucks going from Auckland
to christ Church, rail freight going from one Gray to Bluff.
In some respects, we're looking at this there's nothing more
than we're building a new road. Yes, the ships are
important to two ports are important, but what's more important
is this is just part of New Zealand infrastructure. We

(11:06):
are one country and we need to have the infrastructure
in place that enables us to go there in the
way in which is most economical and efficient for New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
It was Chris McKenzie, chair of Ferry Holdings Limited.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
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