Recently Prime Minister Luxon and Environment Minister returned from Asia where they were surprised that climate change was top of the business people and politicians they met, but I don’t think that they learned anything from it.

The decision to not have rail capable ferries is a decision to ignore climate change and will become an act of vandalism as the railway system slowly closes down due to that decision.

Niall Robertson, National Coordinator of TRAC says that this will be a serious blow to logistics companies that rely on rail and then, as the rail closes down, our exporters that will have to go with a high carbon road transport option. MainFreight have said that this will mean they will put another 5700 truck and trailers on the road. Robertson says, “The roads are awash with big trucks, and the government is having to spend $4billion currently just to fill potholes. That is more than the entire rail ferry deal!” Robertson adds that it is not as if we are going for a self funding option. He says, “Trucks cause 93% of all road damage, but pay just 14% of the costs of maintaining and building the roads. Further, a Ministry of Transport study showed that heavy vehicles were involved in $1.95 billion worth of social cost from fatalities and injuries due to crashes for the year 2021. The total bill for fatalities and injuries on roads was $9.77 billion.

Guy Wellwood, Chair of TRAC says, “Simply our roads are not built to withstand this level of traffic or the size of road vehicles now. The country will have to spend billions on truck demanding lane duplication in order to bring some semblance of safety” Robertson adds, “...but this will not occur in many of the already neglected regions which now face the total loss of their railways”.

Robertson says that Fonterra’s Whareroa plant at Hawera will have to use about 86 trucks a day on the Hawera to Hamilton route with half of that fleet continuing to Tauranga, mostly because the government would not fund the reopening of the Stratford to Taumarunui Line, so freight is being railed an extra 230kms via Palmerston North.

Wellwood says that it needs to be said, “Rail is the motorist’s friend”. Robertson adds, “Road transport externalises a lot of its costs, including pollution from tyres, being high carbon for the foreseeable future, road deaths and injuries and congestion, as well as being just plain frustrating at times for other motorists!”.

TRAC knows that rail is the cure for all of those ills but gets no credit for this at all.

TRAC also knows that road transport is needed for door to door, just in time deliveries and short distance freight. However, long distance freight, bulk freight, especially export containers and some short haul bulk freight is the preserve of rail which can amount to possibly more than 30% of all freight as 30% of all freight is non-urgent. Giving this work to the road transport industry will cost New Zealand a lot.

Robertson says, “This is turning the New Zealand transport industry into a high carbon one which will potentially affect our ability to trade in an increasingly climate conscious world”.

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