Ferry charges queried

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 19

Ferry charges queried

The Government should consider treating New Zealand as one island for rail transportation by reducing ferry charges to an ordinary rail freight equivalent, according to the managing director of TNL Group, Ltd, Mr Garth Butler, in the annual report.

A freight equalisation scheme of this nature would provide a timely stimulus to the economy of the South Island, he said.

All of TNL’s trading activities depended on the

Cook Strait ferries, which is the lifeline of the South Island. “It seems increasingly anomalous to us that while the land-based rail services sustain losses of more than $BB million a year, the interisland service makes disproportionate profits. "The high, (freight) rate structure has created a positive disincentive to produce in, or distribute to, the South Island,” Mr Butler said. This had resulted in • an increasing interest in reviving coastal shipping, a mat-

ter to which the new corporation might address itself. Mr Butler also criticised the standing road user charges related to the cost of internal transport. In TNL’s area of operations, the primary producer bore the greatest burden of this tax, but there was scant evidence that the funds collected were allocated back to the area of source. “One can only conclude that it is just another tax, or that the funds are dissipated within ‘the system’,’’ Mr Butler said.