ACT leader David Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters are at odds over the government's new ferry replacement plan. Photo: RNZ
The new Minister of Rail Winston Peters has poured scorn on ACT leader David Seymour's hopes of privatising the Cook Strait ferry service, and says Seymour was "wrong" about the cost of the new project.
On Wednesday, Seymour said indicative costings were "approximately half the at least $3 billion cost" of Labour's proposal.
He shared that information despite Minister of Finance Nicola Willis' caution about disclosing costs.
Asked on Morning Report if the government had a sum in mind, Peters said it would be "stupid" and "imprudent" to name the price.
"I said [on Wednesday] it would be most imprudent, politically and business-wise, stupid, to start saying what you're going to buy them for, because that's the bottom line. They'll start from there and up it will go."
He rejected Seymour's statement the new deal would cost a "fraction of the price" of the iRex project, and that private investment remained on the table.
"You're talking to the minister in charge now, not the one that's not in charge."
Pressed by Hipkiss on whether Seymour's $2.2bn sum was incorrect, he said, "Of course he's wrong on it.
"He's wrong on the figures that he's used, he's wrong on the question of privatisation and he's wrong on the question of what it's going to cost.
Nicola Willis and Winston Peters announce the plan on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
"But I'll tell you this: it's going to cost a whole lot less than... if we'd persisted with a policy where the whole plan was not to buy two ferries but to build a whole infrastructure costing almost 80 percent of the whole project.
"Where on earth did anybody think that this was a good idea?"
Seymour said yesterday the new plan was "a very good design", and that "private money options are open".
Peters told Morning Report "everything's in the mix but some of the comments I've heard about privatisation ... are just ridiculous.
"We've been through that, we went through that in 1993 when Fay Richwhite got a hold of it and when it was going to make $100m a year...
"It got run down twice in the past; this is not new. But I can tell you this, we will fix it. And I'm certain with the right people behind us, put together very, very quickly, we will have the answers to you."
Asked how the tender process would work, Peters replied: "This is not our first rodeo - we're going to go out and say we want this and this and this, and you tell us what you can do it for, and then we will decide who is the best company."
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