{"id":531826,"date":"2026-07-18T05:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/531826\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:38:08","slug":"david-seymour-questions-govt-ownership-of-cook-strait-ferries-after-winston-peters-confirms-state-owned-operator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/531826\/","title":{"rendered":"David Seymour questions Govt ownership of Cook Strait ferries after Winston Peters confirms state-owned operator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ministry of Transport officials had also earlier investigated whether KiwiRail was best placed to provide the Cook Strait ferry service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the new arrangement, the two ferries, set to arrive in 2029, will be owned by Crown entity Ferry Holdings, and leased to state-owned enterprise KiwiRail. <\/p>\n

The arrangement would be reviewed in 2039 in an effort to keep KiwiRail \u201con their toes\u201d, Peters said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Herald today, Seymour said while he could not divulge Cabinet discussions, the Act Party\u2019s position was that operating Cook Strait ferries was \u201cnot something the Government needs to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"RailRail Minister Winston Peters revealed on Friday the new ferries will be called Kupe and Cook, and be run by KiwiRail. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cThe private sector can and does operate ferries across Cook Strait, and I notice that since we\u2019ve been having this debate, Bluebridge has actually brought a new ferry to New Zealand and put it in place<\/a> while we\u2019ve been talking about doing it,\u201d the Act leader said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReasonable people can ask the question, is this something that the New Zealand Government must do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ActAct Party leader David Seymour says the private sector can and does operate ferries across Cook Strait. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

Seymour said the Government\u2019s $1.7 billion price tag<\/a> for the project represented a burden on the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take the basic economics view of \u2018does the Government have to do this and could the Government do other more urgent things, like $1.7b on hospitals\u2019, for example,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the victory here is cancelling the old contracts has saved substantial money for the taxpayer<\/a>, however, we do worry about what the final cost of the new project will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He would not say whether Act planned to campaign on privatising the service through asset sales, but said his party would be releasing an alternative budget before the election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to release our policy now, but I think reasonable people should be asking how do we manage the Government\u2019s debt and what are the true priorities for borrowing and spending, is it roads and hospitals or is it commercial enterprises?\u201d <\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has suggested National may campaign on asset sales<\/a> before this year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n

Asked about the party\u2019s position on potential private operation of the new ferries, a party spokesman said National has been focused on \u201clifting the performance of state-owned assets so they deliver for Kiwi taxpayers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational will announce its campaign policies in due course,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n

Asked about the new names for the vessels, which Peters said he anticipated would spark backlash from \u201csnivelling wokesters\u201d, Seymour said they were \u201cnice names that have a history in this country\u201d, but \u201csome people might ask, is this a form of a quiet nod to co-governance?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministry of Transport officials had also earlier investigated whether KiwiRail was best placed to provide the Cook Strait…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,138,2223,13242,4194,6284,228521,47117,28828,266,24912,13489,111,43,139,69,1118,44355,3169,6729,262512,14904,17146,16797,3271,88481,14042,14905,6728,6730],"class_list":["post-531826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-business","tag-confirmed","tag-confirms","tag-cook","tag-david","tag-ferries","tag-ferry","tag-fleet","tag-government","tag-govt","tag-leader","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-operator","tag-ownership","tag-peters","tag-privatised","tag-questioned","tag-questions","tag-seymour","tag-should","tag-stateowned","tag-strait","tag-whether","tag-winston","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}