Sorting out the mess his Finance Minister has made of the interisland ferries deal should be the key outcome of the Prime Minister’s visit to South Korea, says the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ).

The cancellation of the deal, which has been under negotiation for eight months now, is expected to cost the taxpayer up to a half a billion dollars – a cost that comes on top of another half a billion dollars of sunk costs in the project.

MUNZ National Secretary Carl Findlay says the current state of limbo created by this failure is unacceptable. “It is astounding that more than a half a year after the Finance Minister cancelled this vital project there has been no resolution.

“It is bad enough that the government clearly had no plan B for the only rail-freight service we have on Cook Strait - the fact that we are still waiting for final cancellation or renegotiation of this deal is madness.

“Nicola Willis’ ferry fiasco isn’t just costing us money, it has put the kibosh on the biggest economic deal between South Korea and New Zealand in years, and risks souring relations between our countries.

Prime Minister Luxon needs to use his much-vaunted international business experience to sit down with the South Koreans and find a way through this expensive fiasco as soon as possible.

“We have to get on with replacing the ferries we have. At best Kiwirail will be able to eke out another five years of service from them; it can take longer than that to design and build new ships. If the government doesn’t settle this cancellation soon, or renegotiate to get Hyundai to build new ferries, we will run out of time.

“That’s a huge and urgent threat to freight customers, our economy, and our international reputation.

“No matter what happens, the reckless decision to cancel the build contract, just days before the steel was to be cut for the hulls, has put New Zealand in a terrible position.

“We need the Prime Minister to call time on the situation, front up on the cost his government has put on us and work to get a contract struck for publicly owned, rail-enabled ferries immediately.

The foolish decision to cancel a project that was more than six years in the making has cost us too much already.”

MUNZ is New Zealand’s largest Maritime union and is affiliated with more than 200 maritime unions internationally.

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