THE PRESS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1978. Restoring the ferry service

Press, 7 November 1978, Page 18

THE PRESS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1978. Restoring the ferry service

Labour's promise to restore a passenger and freight service between the ports of Lyttelton and Wellington deserves more serious consideration than abrupt dismissal as an election-year bribe. Labour, it can be safely assumed, has advocated restoring the service because it sees electoral advantage in doing so. The proposal promises business for the flagging port of Lyttelton and an alternative for passengers which will be cheaper than flying and probably faster and more convenient than the iand-and-sea route via Pieton. The promise to restore the service also allows Labour to pose, symbolically, as the champion of neglected South Island interests. But for all this, a policy is not necessarily unsound merely because it is advantageous to the party proposing it. The cost to the taxpayer of restoring the service, if any, will not be known until a full investigation has been made of the ships available and of the frequency and type of possible services Some of this work has already been done, and the Labour Party has indicated that it will not immediately reintroduce two ships on to the run. Whether a one-ship service will require a subsidy will depend on many other developments, including the general state of the economy and the success or failure of any regional development schemes put into effect. It will be a tricky business devising a service which can compete, for passengers, with the services offered daily by Air New Zealand and the Cook Strait ferries and not be unbearably expensive to run. In

better times than these, and before the custom of sea travel was interrupted, the service was a financial disaster—though partly because of the inappropriate scale of the ship. At times it was far too large for the handful of travellers; at other times the size of the Rangatira was about right—but too seldom so.

Calculations of the cost of the service will also have to take into account that it may, by wastefully duplicating the service provided by the rail ferries, increase the over-all costs of linking the islands. These calculations may show that even a modest service may require a subsidy. A reasonable subsidy might be justified. The social and economic costs of exclusive reliance on the link through Picton can fairly be brought into the picture; so can the cost of an air ticket between Christchurch and Wellington. Another ship of the Rangatira’s proportions would almost certainly require an excessive subsidy. A smaller vessel might provide a passenger and freight service at reasonable cost to the taxpayers. The greatest problem is that no-one knows now what demand would be generated. Probably the only way to find the answer is to test the market; and the Government that does so should be ready to scrap the service if it is not patently justified. Any party offering to revive a shipping service against all trends in travel habits should be prepared to promise that it will not forever support what might turn out to be another disaster.