When Finance Minister Nicola Willis said “I have delivered” yesterday —after announcing the Government’s so-called plan for the Cook Strait ferries— what she really meant was: “I’ve had a gutsful of this lot fighting over it and I’m out.”

She was throwing her arms in the air because she’s had enough of NZ First and ACT squabbling over what should happen with the ferries, and so she went to the Prime Minister and said, “I’m done”. She said to Christopher Luxon, “if Winston thinks he can do better, then let him do it”.

And, as of yesterday, he is apparently going to do it in his new role as Minister of Rail.

That’s my theory on how things have played out behind the scenes in the lead-up to yesterday, but the evidence is there.

Because it’s obvious, isn’t it, that there’s been a spat in Cabinet. Which is why they’ve managed to do absolutely nothing over the past 12 months.

They’ve been squabbling over whether they should get ferries capable of transporting trains. And they’ve been squabbling over whether the ferry service should continue to be a government-run thing or whether it should be handed over to the private sector, which is what David Seymour wants.

He thinks Bluebridge runs a pretty good operation, so why couldn't another private operator do the same?

But, either way, I reckon even died-in-the-wool National supporters can’t deny that this ferry thing has turned into a real cluster, and what happened yesterday was a circus.

And everyone sitting around that Cabinet table should be hanging their heads in shame.

The big negotiators. The big talkers. It’s come to nothing and it’s going to be the second half of next year before we have any idea what’s going to happen, and 2029 before we see any new ferries. And that’s probably being pretty optimistic.

It was Winston Peters who got the iRex project underway in the first place when he was in government with Labour between 2017 and 2020.

On Newstalk this morning he admitted that he’s even embarrassed by how it’s all played out, but he's the guy who's going to fix, apparently.

There was no information forthcoming yesterday about the trains being capable of carrying trains or not. Nothing about the cost. And Winston Peters wasn’t budging on that when he spoke on radio today, either.

"Help is on its way," is all he would say.

All this bravado a year after Nicola Willis pulled the plug on the iRex project, saying it had gone way over budget and she was going to come up with a cheaper alternative.

Remember her banging on about getting a Toyota Corolla inter-island ferry service, instead of the Ferrari service she said the iRex project had become?

Well, it was all talk. We don’t even have a Toyota Corolla. We’ve got a Hillman Hunter - and that’s being kind to the clapped out ferries that are servicing Cook Strait at the moment. It’s also being unkind to Hillman Hunters.

And we will be using the Hillman Hunters until at least 2029 because of the Government's inaction.

What a circus.

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