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Speaker 1: Winston's great rail solution is now revealed, well some of

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Speaker 1: it anyway. It seems just like Kiwi Rail's I Rex

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Speaker 1: but cheaper. The boats are still big, bigger than we've

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Speaker 1: got right now, but smaller than the ones that were

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Speaker 1: ordered before. They are rail enabled, but the port side

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Speaker 1: infrastructure in the work there is a lot more reasonable

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Speaker 1: and that's always been the thing. The original boats were

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Speaker 1: actually a good deal, but the kicker always came port side.

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Speaker 1: Kiwi Rail was under the belief, in fact, this is

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Speaker 1: what they were told back in the day by the government,

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Speaker 1: including Winston Peters, that this project had to be future proofed.

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Speaker 1: This had to be a fifty to one hundred year thing.

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Speaker 1: This was something that had to last, which is a

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Speaker 1: type of thinking that New Zealand doesn't too often. So

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Speaker 1: the ferrari in this whole deal was not the boats,

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Speaker 1: it was the ports. Now, Winston says, Picton needs a

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Speaker 1: big revent that's going to cost but the earthquake pro

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Speaker 1: and Wellington Port just needs a touch up. Thought by

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Speaker 1: the way, that the new fairies will have less capacity

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Speaker 1: in an ideal world. All of this is not ideal,

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Speaker 1: but it is, As Winston says, pragmatic. Now. I know

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Speaker 1: people involved with the original Irex deal on the on

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Speaker 1: the government side, and when this first happened, I talked

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Speaker 1: to them and they said that Kiwi Raw should not

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Speaker 1: come to their government expecting an open checkbook. They were

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Speaker 1: supporters of rail and all that sort of thing, but

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Speaker 1: you just can't come thinking you can just fleece billions

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Speaker 1: out of the government. Decide that, and he was right.

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Speaker 1: The original Irex deal had some good parts to it,

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Speaker 1: and it is the one that we should have aspired to.

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Speaker 1: But as the government keeps telling us, now is not

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Speaker 1: the right time for aspirational long term planning. We just

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Speaker 1: can't afford it. But if not now, when will we

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Speaker 1: do anything right first time? So this deal looks like

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Speaker 1: a saving short term, but the question will always be

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Speaker 1: for another generation will we end up paying more? Long term?

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Speaker 1: The upshot is that we do have fairies coming by

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine, and that's when our current feryes have

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Speaker 1: ended their lives, so the timing is tight. The new

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Speaker 1: fairies are far less likely to think than the ones

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Speaker 1: we already have. And you know that's about it. In

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Speaker 1: this story, We're right back to where we were thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,

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Speaker 1: listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio