Could intercity rail really make a comeback?

A regular Auckland-Wellington sleeper service is among the initiatives being mooted, but it'll have to overcome some major roadblocks first.

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, July 7, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: The government is sitting on half a billion dollars’ worth of RATs; housing should be enshrined as a human right under law, says human rights commission; and Bernard Hickey on why a “sustainable” housing market doesn’t mean an affordable one. But first, the dream of long-distance passenger rail may not be quite dead yet.

Think New Zealand, but just a touch more European

As your currently Europe-based Bulletin writer, I’m spending a lot more time than usual thinking about trains. And not only the fabulously efficient Athens Metro, which charges a flat fee of just $2.10 to get anywhere in the city. Later this month I going to Nuremberg, Germany, and while I have little choice but to fly – Athens to Nuremberg would take around two days by train – it works out cheaper to land 157km away in Munich and complete the last leg by rail, aboard one of the half-hourly trains to Nuremberg from Munich airport. Now back to NZ, where a German-style rail network will forever remain a pipe dream but a basic inter-region train service has real potential – at least according to a new parliamentary select committee report. After poring over 1750 submissions, the committee this week recommended feasibility studies on restarting a proper Auckland-Wellington passenger service, establishing new routes connecting Auckland to Tauranga and Wellington to Napier, and extending the Capital Connection to Fielding. There were no recommendations for the South Island, whose main trunk line was once home to a thriving passenger service. RIP The Southerner, forever in this mainlander’s heart.

Many reasons for caution

Under the current set-up, regional councils are responsible for all the heavy lifting on bringing rail services to their area. The committee says that given the proposed services will link multiple regions, a central government agency should take on the job; transport planner Darren Davis lays out the reasons it’s such a necessary change on his Substack Adventures in Transitland. It’d be just more needless bureaucracy, says National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown, who singles out Te Huia, the Hamilton-Auckland service which still only recovers around 14% of its costs through fares, as an example of the challenges inter-regional rail will face. Another reality check comes from EV advocate Donald Love in a thought-provoking piece for The Spinoff. While the emissions-lowering benefits of a modern, fully-networked rail service are huge, the low level of electrification on the NZ network means we could be stuck with carbon-spewing diesel locomotives for many years to come. Given how quickly EV technology is advancing, we’re better off focusing our efforts (and funds) on the transport options that cut our emissions now, not many years in the future, he says.

Busting the myths about rail in Aotearoa

If you’ve an interest in the future of regional rail in New Zealand, Suraya Sidhu Singh is a name you should know. The Taranaki-based writer, rail lover and Save Our Trains spokesperson argues it’s morally indefensible for KiwiRail to allow our long-distance passenger network to be turned into a luxury for tourists. “The role of the state owned enterprise is simply to make as much money as possible from rail – its potential to save lives apparently doesn’t count,” she writes on The Spinoff, pointing to NZ’s high road toll as reason enough for people to be encouraged out of their cars and onto trains. Again for The Spinoff, she’s compiled a great list of reasons why people think passenger rail won’t work here – and why she believes they’re all rubbish. Our population is too small. Our hills are too high. Our tracks are too slow – she has data-backed rebuttals for all of them. Following the release of the select committee report this week, Save Our Trains was in a celebratory mood. “On the journey to inter regional passenger rail, we are at the equivalent of Paraparaumu on the journey to Auckland,” they tweeted, “but at least we've left Wellington Station!”

Light rail for Christchurch gets one step closer

As Darren Davis notes on his most recent Substack post, Christchurch is the largest city in Australasia not to have any rail-based urban transit. That could all change if the Greater Christchurch Partnership’s plan for a rapid transit network is approved by Waka Kotahi this month. I’ll let the transport blog Greater Auckland, which has an excellent overview of the project, summarise what’s proposed: ​​”An on-street corridor ultimately running between Belfast in the North and Hornby in the west. The full route is around 22km in length with 21 stations and would use either light rail or high-capacity articulated buses.” After years of bickering over Auckland light rail, could Ōtautahi come from behind and actually get there first? 

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Government sitting on half a billion dollars’ worth of RATs

The government has around 60 million rapid antigen tests (RATs) still in stock, worth $531 million, the NZ Herald’s Derek Cheng reports. As reported by Cheng last week, about 30% of these stocks, worth $158m, have already expired or will expire by the end of July, and are set to be wasted if Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand doesn’t find a way to re-purpose or recycle them. Act’s deputy leader Brooke van Velden, who got the figures from a parliamentary question, says ordering so many RATs shows a “mind-boggling level of mismanagement”, noting that $531m is half of Pharmac’s annual budget. Health minister Ayesha Verrall has defended the stock levels. “We made the decision to be as prepared for the ongoing pandemic as possible, and stock was purchased to prepare us in the face of significant risk and uncertainty.”

Housing should be a human right, says commission

The Human Rights Commission says housing should be enshrined as a human right in New Zealand law, and a new housing watchdog be set up. The commission yesterday released its final report after a two-year enquiry into housing which found that “successive governments have let all New Zealanders down” when it comes to ensuring access to livable housing, says chief commissioner Paul Hunt. Enshrining the right to housing in law would make governments live up to their responsibilities, he says. "If there had been proper recognition of the right to a decent home some 20, 30 years ago in New Zealand, I very much doubt that the housing crisis would have arisen as it has." The report also calls for more independent oversight of the sector as a whole, such as a housing ombudsman or commissioner. While the watchdog proposal has been welcomed by many housing activists, some say the human rights law isn’t the kind of practical intervention that’s most needed right now, and the government should focus on improving supply and keeping a lid on rents. 

When house price sustainability doesn’t mean affordability

In 2021, the Reserve Bank told us that house prices were unsustainably high and would likely fall by around 15%. That has proven to be the case and the market is now considered sustainable. Yet, house price-to-income ratios are still two to three times higher than they were 20 years ago, and most people with regular incomes still struggle to buy homes. In the latest episode of When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks to Reserve Bank researcher Dr Andrew Coleman about his research measuring house price sustainability and why house prices remain unaffordable, despite hitting sustainable levels.

Click and collect

• Leo Molloy has been forced to apologise for his fake food menu at this week’s Auckland mayoral debate featuring jokes that have been called racist and homophobic.

• The End of Life law may be heightening suicide risk among elderly people who have their request for assisted dying turned down.

• One NZ should pull its “100%” mobile coverage marketing campaign, says ComCom, or risk legal action.

• Homeowners in Queenstown will see their rates bill go up 14% on average this year – one of the biggest increases in the country. 

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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It’s Friday so…

There’s nothing funny about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian private military contractor responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands in Ukraine, Syria and in countries across Africa. Nothing – except his selfies, leaked to the media following a raid on his mansion by Russian security forces.

Which Prigozhin are you today?