Railway that works will benefit NZ - Mainfreight boss

Group Managing Director for Mainfreight Don Braid told TV One’s Q+A programme that the country needs a good transport infrastructure.

"And unfortunately, we’ve got government Ministers like Steven Joyce thinking that this is all about Mainfreight’s benefit. It’s not to Mainfreight’s benefit; it’s actually to New Zealand’s benefit that we get a railway that works," he says.

CORIN Why is that? Is it simply less trucks on the road? What is the benefit really of rail? What’s the difference?

DON You take what we move on rail today and move that back on to road, that would be another 21,000 trucks a year. That’s ludicrous. Our roading infrastructure won’t hold up to that. We’ve got an increasing population. If we had high-speed passenger rail between Hamilton and Whangarei, we’d feed Auckland, we’d take the housing bubble out of the situation.

CORIN But you’re talking billions and billions of dollars of infrastructure to do that.

DON The railway is there.

CORIN But to run high-speed?

DON Absolutely, it’s capable. All we’ve got to do is have a government with a transport strategy that involves that.

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz