John MacDonald: Ferry privatisation would just be excusing KiwiRail's shortcomings - Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

I don’t like this idea David Seymour’s pushing of privatising the Interislander ferry service and getting a private operator to run it, instead of KiwiRail.  

And if I was to sum up why I’m opposed to it as succinctly as I could, it would come down to just two words and one number. State Highway 1.  

Tell that to the ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister, though.   

He’s saying the Government doesn't need to own the ferries and that it would make sense for the Government to get its money out of the ferry business and use it to pay off debt or build things like roads.   

He reckons that history shows that governments are the worst at running businesses, and reckons private operators would do a much better job of owning and operating the ferries.  

But I think that would be too much of a gamble when you consider that Cook Strait isn’t just a stretch of water, it’s actually part of State Highway 1. And I wouldn’t be happy having two private operators being responsible for getting us across that stretch of it.   

Because with private operators, they’re only in it if there’s a buck to be made.  

Which I don’t have a problem with, but we already have one private operator running services on Cook Strait – would you really want to see that become two private operators?  

Two private operators who would have every right to pull the pin if they decided it wasn’t worth their while continuing?  

Or what if one of them went under? Would you really be happy with one private operator having a monopoly on Cook Strait?  

Besides which, this talk of privatising the Interislander is just letting KiwiRail off the hook. You ask people in the street, and most will probably tell you that the Interislander service is pretty unreliable.  

That may or may not be 100 percent true, but I’m certainly not going to say KiwiRail is doing a brilliant job with the ferries. 

However, instead of talking about selling off the ferries and giving the job to someone else, the Government should be telling KiwiRail to pull its socks up instead. Because the service it provides between Picton and Wellington is an essential service that needs to stay in the Government’s hands.  

I wouldn’t even be up for partial privatisation like Air New Zealand, for example.   

Someone I was talking to was saying that they thought Air New Zealand was a great advertisement for partial privatisation.  

Saying that even though quite a few people have a beef with the airline in terms of its fares and where it does and doesn’t fly to, you can’t argue that the airline is a very well-run business.  

But that still isn’t enough to convince me that it would be a good idea for the Government to wash its hands of the Interislander ferry service.    

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