Heather du Plessis-Allan: Nicola Willis is having a ferry problem

Be under no illusion about it - when that ferry ran onto the sand on Friday night, that became a massive problem for the person who is probably National’s biggest asset, Nicola Willis.

Because she cancelled the ferries, this is going to be on her.

Now I'm not arguing about cancelling those big ferries, I actually think she made the right call. The thinking behind buying them seems to me like a stupid idea.

Which was - you need those big ferries to to drive a train onto a boat, and then ship the entire thing to another island, and then drive it off again from the other side.

Now, think about how much redundant metal there is on a train, or how heavy it is before you even start loading it up. Now, you're paying the fuel bill to get it all across the Cook Strait. That's stupid.

Surely you’re better off unloading the thing and reloading another one on the other end.

Regardless of whether the call was the right one, Nicola made the call. But then she made a mistake - she didn’t provide an alternative.

You can’t cancel ferries we desperately need without replacing them with other ferries. Because we still desperately need them.

It seems to me there's only one way to fix this.

Nicola can’t go back to the big ferries she’s cancelled, that would be admitting she made a mistake and it's a bit early in the term for that.

She can’t buy replacements on the second-hand market, apparently they don’t exist at the moment.

She can’t leave us waiting, because those ships are already trouble on the water. Every single one of them have had a problem in the last 18 months, they will all be past their use-by dates by next year.

She’s going to have to buy us new ferries. I don't know how she does that, maybe renegotiate the contract with the Koreans for smaller ones if it's not too late, or maybe just start from scratch and get new ones.

But they'd better be here quick, because those big ferries were due to arrive in two years time.

Every day after 2026 that we're without new ferries is a day that we legitimately can blame every ferry problem on Nicola Willis.

She is smart enough, and National is smart enough, to know that by now.

So watch them come up with a solution real quick. Which, frankly, they should've come up with the day they cancelled those ferries.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ever do for see Ellen be under no illusion about today.
When that ferry ran onto that sand on Friday night,
that became a massive problem for the person who I
reckon is probably National's biggest asset at the moment, and
that's Nichola Willis. Because Nichola canceled the Fairies, didn't she,
So this is going to be on her. Now. I'm
not arguing about Nichola's decision to cancel the Fairies. I

(00:21):
actually think she made the right call because those things
were silly. I mean, it seemed to me that the
thinking behind buying them came out of a stupid idea,
which was, you need these big fairies so that you
can drive a train onto them and then ship the
entire thing to another island and then drive it off
again at the other side. Now, think about how much
redundant metal there is in a train, Just how heavy

(00:42):
a train is before you even start loading it up.
Now you're putting that on a boat, and then you're
paying the fuel bill to get it across the cook straight.
That stupid I mean, surely, yeah, it's gonna take a
bit more mantower, but you're better off unloading the thing
on one side and then reloading another one on the
other end. But regardless and regardless of whether the right
call was made, Nikola Willis made the call, and then

(01:04):
she made the mistake. And the mistake was that when
she canceled the fairies, she didn't provide an alternative. You
cannot cancel fairies that we desperately need without replacing them
with other fairies, because we still desperately need them, right
And how long have we lost here, like six months
or something like that. It seems to me that she's
only got one option really here to fix it. She
can't go back to buying the old fairies, like, she

(01:24):
can't reinstate that contract because that would be that would
be basically admitting that she made a mistake in the
first place. She can't buy replacement fairies on the second
hand market because apparently they don't exist at the moment.
She cannot leave us waiting and without a replacement fairy
because the ones that we've already got are already in
trouble on the water. I mean, every single one of

(01:45):
them now has had a problem in the last eighteen months.
They will all be past their use by dates by
next year. So seems to me the last option left.
Nikola is going to have to buy us new fairies. Now.
I don't know whether that's going to be cheaper than
what she just canceled. I know how she's going to
do this, right, I mean, maybe she can renegotiate the
contract with the Koreans for the smaller ones to replace
the big ones with the smaller ones, if it's not

(02:06):
too late, or maybe she just has to start from
scratch and order us new ones and get new ones.
But they better be here quick, because those big fairies
were due to arrive in two years time, twenty twenty six.
They were going to be here. Every single day after
that that we are without new fairies is a day
that we can legitimately blame every single fairy problem on
Nikola Willis, and she's smart enough and National is smart

(02:29):
enough to both know that. So I reckon watch them
come up with a solution real quick, and frankly, it's
one that they should have come up with on the
day that they canceled those big fairies. For more from
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