New Ferry plans will cost $2 billion.

Rail Minister Winston Peters has revealed plans for new Cook Strait ferries. Peters announced yesterday the two vessels and port upgrades will be significantly cheaper for tax payers than scrapped IREX plans, saying tax payers will now be paying $1.7 billion of the $2 billion plan. 

He says New Zealanders have saved $2.3 billion from this plans change.

The Maritime Union says a full cost breakdown is needed before it can be satisfied with the savings claims. Spokesperson Victor Billot says new ferry plans may be cheaper, but upgrades are now more modest.

"People often seem to say this is how much this is going to cost and as we've seen with basically every infrastructure project in New Zealand over the past few years, the cost of things tend to go up."  

He says the plans have also changed what is going to be delivered.  

"I think the things we need to remember is what we've got now, it is different from what was going to be there.  

"The ferries we've got now are smaller, their specs are different, and the cost is a little bit higher.  

"But the major problem was around the costs for the landside infrastructure.  

"Now obviously landside infrastructure is going to be a lot more modest than what was going to be there so it's not going to last as long or be as resilient for things like earth quakes.  

"That's why it's cheaper. It's not getting the same level of resilience and long term resilience."  

He says nearly 600 million dollars was put into planning with Irex, which need to be taken into account when speaking about costs.Billot says with the new ships now arriving in 2029, 70 people from a recently retired ferry have lost their jobs in the interim.  

"They're skilled people with specialist skills.  

They're not necessarily going to wait around for several years for the new ferries to be here. So that is an unfortunate outcome."

He says neither of the two ferries currently in use are rail enabled, which will be an issue for freight, however Billot believes the new Ferries being locally owned and the capacity for rail is a big win.