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Andrew Dickens: The political games hiding the real issues behind the Interislander · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyone who thought the ferry debate was over
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for someone was very, very wrong when they got their
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: papers this weekend. The weekend papers were full of recons
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and I reckon. It's because people have begun to realize
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that the ferries are a bigger piece of infrastructure than
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: most think. Sure, we've got a lot of tourists on it,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: we've got a lot of locals traveling back and forth
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: on it, going home, going to new jobs, whatever, heading
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: out on the ventures. But thirty billion dollars worth of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: freight travel between the North and South Island on it too.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It's the Iron Bridge, they call it. So the reckons
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: were all about who screwed it up more? Was it
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Nicholas Willis, Nikola Willis? Was it Grant Robertson or was
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it Kiwi Rail itself. There was also debate over Winston's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: hijacking of the rail job and whether this will play
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: out well or badly for him. There was the conversation
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: about rail enabled or rail capable. Well that rumbled on.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Some said just let Bluebridge have the whole thing, after all,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: their ships don't seem to break down or run aground.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Stephen Joyce chimed in commented on the nostalgic choice of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: k Fara Farda for the fairy port. This is a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: very earthquake prone reclamation, which is what's making Portside so expensive.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: But if not there, then where Stephen. Relocating the port
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to a seismically more stable location could be even more expensive.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: And all of this conversation was very politically tinged, and
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a problem. I saw a comment on social
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: media by the political commentator Liam Hare who noted that
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: when Grant Robertson first saw the plans that Kiwi Ral had,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: he said no and told them to go back, sharpen
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: their pencils and try again. Then he failed to put
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the possible expenditure into the pre election financial update. But
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: remember kiw we Weral had ving come to him with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the new plan. Now not putting the potential the possible
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: expenditure into the PREFU the pre election financial update means
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: one of two things. One, Labor was going to hide it,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: keep it secret, but you know, three to four billion
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: dollars is really too big to hide, or what is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: more likely, Labor hated the idea too. In other words,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: no one a year ago knew what to do. No
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: one like Kiwi Rail's idea on the table. Now, how
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: refreshing would that have been If that had been said
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: openly at the time, then we could have all had
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a properly informed debate that made up a grown grown
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: up made a grown up decision, and instead of all
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: this political posturing and virtue signaling and point scoring over
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: who's right and who's wrong, instead of the silence as
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we waited for some hail Mary answer from some politician,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and while we waited, a thirty billion dollar trade route
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: slowly fell apart. This whole thing is another example of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: how the best infrastructure decisions are made without politicians, because
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the politicians play games that mask the real issues. For
• 2:46
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