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Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyone who thought the ferry debate was over

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Speaker 1: for someone was very, very wrong when they got their

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Speaker 1: papers this weekend. The weekend papers were full of recons

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Speaker 1: and I reckon. It's because people have begun to realize

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Speaker 1: that the ferries are a bigger piece of infrastructure than

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Speaker 1: most think. Sure, we've got a lot of tourists on it,

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Speaker 1: we've got a lot of locals traveling back and forth

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Speaker 1: on it, going home, going to new jobs, whatever, heading

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Speaker 1: out on the ventures. But thirty billion dollars worth of

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Speaker 1: freight travel between the North and South Island on it too.

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Speaker 1: It's the Iron Bridge, they call it. So the reckons

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Speaker 1: were all about who screwed it up more? Was it

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Speaker 1: Nicholas Willis, Nikola Willis? Was it Grant Robertson or was

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Speaker 1: it Kiwi Rail itself. There was also debate over Winston's

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Speaker 1: hijacking of the rail job and whether this will play

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Speaker 1: out well or badly for him. There was the conversation

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Speaker 1: about rail enabled or rail capable. Well that rumbled on.

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Speaker 1: Some said just let Bluebridge have the whole thing, after all,

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Speaker 1: their ships don't seem to break down or run aground.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Joyce chimed in commented on the nostalgic choice of

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Speaker 1: k Fara Farda for the fairy port. This is a

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Speaker 1: very earthquake prone reclamation, which is what's making Portside so expensive.

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Speaker 1: But if not there, then where Stephen. Relocating the port

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Speaker 1: to a seismically more stable location could be even more expensive.

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Speaker 1: And all of this conversation was very politically tinged, and

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Speaker 1: maybe that's a problem. I saw a comment on social

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Speaker 1: media by the political commentator Liam Hare who noted that

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Speaker 1: when Grant Robertson first saw the plans that Kiwi Ral had,

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Speaker 1: he said no and told them to go back, sharpen

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Speaker 1: their pencils and try again. Then he failed to put

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Speaker 1: the possible expenditure into the pre election financial update. But

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Speaker 1: remember kiw we Weral had ving come to him with

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Speaker 1: the new plan. Now not putting the potential the possible

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Speaker 1: expenditure into the PREFU the pre election financial update means

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Speaker 1: one of two things. One, Labor was going to hide it,

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Speaker 1: keep it secret, but you know, three to four billion

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Speaker 1: dollars is really too big to hide, or what is

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Speaker 1: more likely, Labor hated the idea too. In other words,

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Speaker 1: no one a year ago knew what to do. No

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Speaker 1: one like Kiwi Rail's idea on the table. Now, how

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Speaker 1: refreshing would that have been If that had been said

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Speaker 1: openly at the time, then we could have all had

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Speaker 1: a properly informed debate that made up a grown grown

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Speaker 1: up made a grown up decision, and instead of all

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Speaker 1: this political posturing and virtue signaling and point scoring over

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Speaker 1: who's right and who's wrong, instead of the silence as

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Speaker 1: we waited for some hail Mary answer from some politician,

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Speaker 1: and while we waited, a thirty billion dollar trade route

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Speaker 1: slowly fell apart. This whole thing is another example of

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Speaker 1: how the best infrastructure decisions are made without politicians, because

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Speaker 1: the politicians play games that mask the real issues. For

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Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to

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