Victor Billot: Maritime Union spokesperson on the ballooning costs of maintaining the Interislander ferries

Maintenance on ageing Interislander ferries is seen as a short-term solution by the Maritime Union. 

Estimated annual maintenance costs to keep KiwiRail’s three ageing Interislander ferries running could almost double to $65 million by next year, and keeping the ferries afloat will be an “ongoing battle”. 

A previous assessment of the fleet’s condition raised concerns about steel corrosion, metal getting weak and cracking, and prohibitive maintenance expenses. 

The project to replace the fleet with two mega ferries was left dead in the water in December after overall costs, including new terminals and wharf upgrades, ballooned to almost $3 billion and the new Government refused to fund the blowout. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has previously refused to commit to replacing the fleet by 2026, which is when the now-cancelled mega ferries were due to arrive. 

Given the project’s history of delays, budget blowouts, and other problems, Willis said people were “dreaming” if they thought the mega ferries would be up and running with the necessary port development in place by that time. 

A Ministerial Advisory Group is looking into new options for the future of the ferry service. 

Maritime Union spokesperson Victor Billot told Mike Hosking that ships of this age will have issues, especially on Cook Strait. 

He says they are maintaining ferries that are nearing the end of their lives anyway.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Then we've got bad news, more bad news around maintaining
stuff that's old. So the fairies are back in the
news this morning. Maintenance cost Qui Ray will tell us
for these three Into Islanders could blow out to sixty
five million dollars by next year. Victor Billow is with
the Maritime Union, he's with us, Victim Morning, Good Morning light.
Sixty five million versus three billion? What would you do?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, I'd look at what New Zealand needs, and we
feel that New Zealand needs a functioning, fits for purpose
ferries on the cock Strait, and I think that's the
overall picture, so that we're kind of in a sense,
it's almost throwing good money after bed because you're just
maintaining a fairies that are nearing the end of life anyway,

(00:44):
so they're not a long term option even with the maintenance.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
How naked are they well, I mean, I think you
know they're sailing, But the.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Reality is if you've got a ship of that age
and they're all coming up to thirty years old more,
then it's going to have issues, especially on a tough
piece of water like the cook Straight. So I think
we're just going to probably see more maintenance issues and
as we've seen over the last couple of years, there

(01:15):
have been actually some incidents where the faery lost power
and the straight and that's not something we want to
be seeing happening again.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
No, it does not. Do you have any sympathy for
the government in the sense that part of it? I mean,
what's your view of Kiwi Rail in the sense that
the part of the big blowout was not just the ships,
it was the land side operation there and that got
expensive and then the whole thing became a cluster and
then Nicola Willas turns out and works out we've got
no money. Do you have any sympathy for any of
that or not? Really?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh, look, it's fair enough that the government wants to
keep an eye on the cost of these projects. I
don't think anyone objects to that. It's the issue is,
as you've pointed out, the fairies were actually the cost
issue was more the land based terminals. But the problem
is is you can cancel things, but we're still that

(02:03):
might be the financially the best course of action on
the short term, but the problem is is we've still
got the out of date connection and I think that
it's this is an infrastructure government. They say they've put
a big, big focus on, you know, getting things done,
and they certainly invest a lot in motorways and we

(02:23):
see the Cook Straight crossing. I mean, that's just an
extension of the statehome one. Really, if you don't have that,
then the whole New Zealand transport system starts to look
a bit sketchy.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
You make a very good point if if it was
just the fairies, the fairies alone, could it have been
a done deal and it was just the landside that
got a bit complicated and we could have got around that.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yes, And I think that's you know, that's a fair comment.
But the question is is that where do we go
to from here? And we feel that there has to be,
you know, has to be revisiting of the project at
some point, and because it's you know, as we've seen
with these ongoing costs of just trying to keep things
up and running and patch things up. To be honest,

(03:07):
it's it's not really a good look for New Zealand,
and certainly down to the South Island where I'm at
at the moment, it's people very feel very strongly that
the Cook Island can Cook Straight connection has to be maintained.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Couldn't agree more. Victor appreciated very much. Victor Bill, who's
with the Maritime Union New Zealand. He makes for more
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