Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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#3171895 15-Dec-2023 10:17

Has Winston being saying much as the early part of this project was under his direction?
He has also been very scathing of the half measures and ferries in the past.
http://beehive.govt.nz/release/government-investment-supports-acquisition-new-interislander-ferries

"
State-Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters has welcomed KiwiRail’s announcement that it is seeking a preferred shipyard to build two new rail-enabled ferries for the Cook Strait crossing.
""

The winner was not Ferrari though.

Haven't we already done the thing with second hand ferries that have bits fall of them and are unreliable.
Long lists of maintenace that needs to be done and such as its ... old ...
I think its been noted the seaway is not very kind to designs that were never intended to allow for this.

We have some pretty tough conditions, and requirement for a very reliable service considering link importance.

With freight its not so much of an issue if you lose or nearly lose a ship, one full of passengers well.

GV27

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#3171950 15-Dec-2023 10:48

ezbee:

Haven't we already done the thing with second hand ferries that have bits fall of them and are unreliable.
Long lists of maintenace that needs to be done and such as its ... old ...
I think its been noted the seaway is not very kind to designs that were never intended to allow for this.

We have some pretty tough conditions, and requirement for a very reliable service considering link importance.

With freight its not so much of an issue if you lose or nearly lose a ship, one full of passengers well.

The ferries are a small (and ever decreasing) part of the cost. The blowout seems to be in the docksides and land-based infrastructure to service them.

Given how important some people seem to think this project is, this kind of cost escalation becomes even more inexcusable.

ezbee

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#3171954 15-Dec-2023 10:54

But they are halting progress on the ship contract and talking about completely different smaller second hand ships.

SaltyNZ

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#3171956 15-Dec-2023 10:59

ezbee:

But they are halting progress on the ship contract and talking about completely different smaller second hand ships.

can't believe an English Literature major is making such a shocking mess of a decision about national freight infrastructure

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GV27

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#3171964 15-Dec-2023 11:05

SaltyNZ:

can't believe an English Literature major is making such a shocking mess of a decision about national freight infrastructure

Who is making the mess here? These blowouts were known to the previous finance minister, who also objected to the escalation in costs.

And, from memory, studied university student unionism at post-grad.

GV27

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#3171965 15-Dec-2023 11:08

ezbee:

But they are halting progress on the ship contract and talking about completely different smaller second hand ships.

Yes.... because the port-side infrastructure to support those ships can't be done without adding $400m in costs in less than a month, apparently.

If the project gets rescoped then those boats may no longer end up being fit for purpose.

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#3171966 15-Dec-2023 11:09

GV27:

Who is making the mess here? These blowouts were known to the previous finance minister, who also objected to the escalation in costs.

And, from memory, studied university student unionism at post-grad.

As I said above, blowouts are an inevitable consequence of a broken-by-design procurement process. I don't have a problem with people on either team being annoyed about them except inasmuch as they are all part of the problem.

It's more that someone who actually knows about this topic should be making the decision on whether the blowouts are worth it or not. And neither English Literature nor University Student Unionism studies (that's a thing?) really qualify you to make that determination.

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GV27

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#3171967 15-Dec-2023 11:18

SaltyNZ:

As I said above, blowouts are an inevitable consequence of a broken-by-design procurement process. I don't have a problem with people on either team being annoyed about them except inasmuch as they are all part of the problem.

It's more that someone who actually knows about this topic should be making the decision on whether the blowouts are worth it or not. And neither English Literature nor University Student Unionism studies (that's a thing?) really qualify you to make that determination.

We have plenty of non-qualified people without a technical background in the things they are ministers of in ministries. It's nothing new and definitely not the biggest problem here, which as you point it, is not having enough technical input at the design and scoping stage.

And these decisions are often based on advice from respective ministries and usually with commentary from Treasury. I'm sure that will be released either proactively or through an OIA.

Here's an extract from the 2021 advice flagging this exact thing btw:

(c) note that officials retain concerns with Project iReX, specifically residual cost risk for
landside infrastructure, the lack of external quality assurance for KiwiRail’s forecasts
and the lack of clearly measured benefits from the project.

https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2021-10/irex-4475692.pdf

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#3171968 15-Dec-2023 11:23

There is a good summary of the circus show here.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-kiwirails-cook-strait-mega-ferry-vision-unravelled/WP2DT7JHONBSTBEEIKOHASAEIY/

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#3171970 15-Dec-2023 11:30

GV27:

And these decisions are often based on advice from respective ministries and usually with commentary from Treasury. I'm sure that will be released either proactively or through an OIA.

Forgive me if I don't give them the benefit of the doubt on whether they care about or have even read any such advice. You could take any one of their decisions in isolation and make a reasonable case for why it could merit discussion, but you take them in aggregate along with the Act & NZF agreements and the only reasonable conclusion is that they aren't making decisions based on sound advice, but rather because woke Labour was involved and **** those guys and the horse they rode in on.

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GV27

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#3171972 15-Dec-2023 11:39

SaltyNZ:

You could take any one of their decisions in isolation and make a reasonable case for why it could merit discussion, but you take them in aggregate along with the Act & NZF agreements and the only reasonable conclusion is that they aren't making decisions based on sound advice, but rather because woke Labour was involved and **** those guys and the horse they rode in on.

So in other words, there's no possible way you'll accept they may have made a sound, reasoned decision?

Got it.

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#3171976 15-Dec-2023 11:43

GV27:

So in other words, there's no possible way you'll accept they may have made a sound, reasoned decision?

Got it.

The onus is on them. I wasn't the one that published an entire manifesto full of stuff to be repealed with no evidence to suggest why it should be, nor the government that has gone ahead and started to check items off despite clear evidence from experts that they were wrong.

For this specific issue, it's not like they haven't gone ahead and built things that had a terrible ROI before. Why is this one different?

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#3172026 15-Dec-2023 11:55

GV27:

E: This is fitting, linked from GA this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H8lthoc_a8

Very fitting. It shows that all Lawmakers need to step up. There is some government bill evaluation process, cannot recall what it is, RIS, RIF or whatever, I see that is being dumped, which wont help either

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#3172027 15-Dec-2023 11:56

SaltyNZ:

GV27:

Thomas Coughlan seems to have something indicating that a cost estimate of $2.6b was given in early November and then in late November it had gone up to $3b.

TBH Willis is entirely right be to suspicious of costings from agencies that serve up a $400m increase in a project cost in less than a month.

The whole concept of bidding is broken by design.

Everyone says "we won't necessarily accept the lowest bid!" but we all know that the highest bid is a non-starter, and the lowest bid will definitely have preference. Especially when someone can point at the other bids and say "your tax dollars are being wasted!"

You get whatever you incentivise. So bidders trim out every bit of fat, every contingency. They take out everything except the bare bones, everything went right first time, there were never any surprises items to deliver the project. Every bid is unrealistically low. Then we pick one, and - shock! - the time, the cost, or more often both go up and up as all the stuff that was cut out to stop the bid from being rejected out of hand ends up happening, because it was inevitable that they would.

Then whoever is in opposition screams about wasted tax dollars. Typically the likes of our glorious new leaders scream the loudest, ever knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

The alternative approach is to spend much longer studying the issue in order to attempt to uncover as many of the surprises as possible up front. Then again whoever isn't in charge screams about how the government is wasting tax dollars on expensive consultants who aren't even delivering anything. Not that anyone in charge at the moment would do something like that either.

Consequently - everything's ****ed because we're so cheap we either cancel it after most of the money spent on studying it has been spent but before it begins, or we complete it, don't do the project, and then wonder why nothing ever gets better.

Bolded, they are being dumped as well

tdgeek

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#3172029 15-Dec-2023 12:00

ezbee:

Has Winston being saying much as the early part of this project was under his direction?
He has also been very scathing of the half measures and ferries in the past.
http://beehive.govt.nz/release/government-investment-supports-acquisition-new-interislander-ferries

"
State-Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters has welcomed KiwiRail’s announcement that it is seeking a preferred shipyard to build two new rail-enabled ferries for the Cook Strait crossing.
""

The winner was not Ferrari though.

Haven't we already done the thing with second hand ferries that have bits fall of them and are unreliable.
Long lists of maintenace that needs to be done and such as its ... old ...
I think its been noted the seaway is not very kind to designs that were never intended to allow for this.

We have some pretty tough conditions, and requirement for a very reliable service considering link importance.

With freight its not so much of an issue if you lose or nearly lose a ship, one full of passengers well.

I like my idea of shipping from Auckland/Tauranga to Lyttelton/Port Chalmers that was on a TV news clip not long ago. To me it seems to solve a lot of issues, and avoids new larger terminals

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