NZ paid 122% Of Cost For 0 i-Rex Ferries

Partially open article:

Key points are the i-Rex ferries cancellation, NZ’s recognition of Palestine held up by ACT, Winston Peters selling NZ for $$$, and the continued environmental issues under National, ACT and NZ First.

Plus - Dirty Politics and media

The Right’s Attacks - A Taste Of What Is To Come

• The full scale assault by the right this week, including allied media, has been quite extraordinary, and gives us a small but important taste of what is to come.
• In the land of propaganda, quick sound bytes are essential to cultivating servitude to the cause, and loyalty to the masters. And in this case it’s the supposed “reckless, unaccountable” $66 billion that they want people to remember and associate with Labour / Hipkins - never mind all questions were fully accounted for.
• We live in the land of propaganda now.
• Facts are irrelevant to their cause.

Corporate Media Appears To Support The Right

• NZME, chaired by Steve Joyce and directed by folks such as James (Jim) Grenon etc. on the now refreshed and taken over Board, have the below on the front page.
• Note there is nothing about the Interislander ferry cost cancellation anywhere to be seen on the front page, but they do take time to talk about Hipkins and co on the Covid inquiry again, telling Kiwis people are angry about it.

And here’s The Post / Stuff

I scanned both entire pages, scrolling right to the bottom, and could not find any news about the recent i-Rex cancellation on either. But they both featured the Covid inquiry heavily.

Fortunately, RNZ serves up the i-Rex news and 1News further down too.

Ferries cancellation cost $671 million - that’s ~20% more than the cost of procuring the next generation ferries

• The cost of cancelling i-Rex represents ~120% of the full fixed cost of the cancelled ferries, ie. instead of spending 20% less to get the next-gen ferries, we are paying much more for *checks notes* nothing at all.

  • Note the real cost is much higher because there are significant unaccounted costs- including doubling maintenance costs, the 60% price reduction we had secured for next generation future proof ferries, the cost of downtime and retiring current ferries i.e rail enabled Aratere is being retired on Monday, future costs assuming the next purchase is not scaled to the same future proof specifications etc.

• RNZ’s article started with a series of lies by Winston Peters, which are not worth repeating, before we hear from Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Labour transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere.

• In short, the decision was reckless and rather than receiving the next generation, hybrid, fuel efficient and future proofed ferries that we got for 40% of market price this year and next, we now have to wait years more.

• My take - We can also expect to see reduced functionality and reduced capacity to make this government look as good as it can, while probably hearing claims they have “saved billions”.

• Winston Peters noted his ferry negotiations are proceeding well.

Regulatory Standards Bill - A Test of Democracy And Commitment, But Little Publicity

• 98.7% of submitters on the Regulatory Standards Bill oppose the bill. The Select Committee saw the second highest number of submissions in NZ’s history
• Only Waatea News covered this statistic.

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