The News hub press news article on 28/7/21 complaints about a lack of leadership of the Kiwi rail Board of Directors has merit as CEAC has long complained about several incidents about Kiwi rail executives allowing HB/Gisborne rail to lapse into a state of “deferred rail infrastructure” to become so unsafe that at any time when storms approach the region, it would cause the Gisborne rail to be closed down and in 2012 that was exactly what occurred and was highlighted by Labours’ Transport spokesperson Phil Twyford.

Minister Twyford then after visiting Gisborne to see the issue first hand, he explained his case for his deep concerns for our region to his Select Committee in 2012 that the funding to maintain the HB/Gisborne rail line was removed by John Keys’ Government at that time, by his Transport Minister Steven Joyce at that time. Phil Twyford was a member of the Transport Select Committee on Transport in 2012.

CEAC now joins with (AT) Auckland Transport and the counterpart at Wellington regional Council Transport committees to call for replacement of Kiwi rail board members who allowed the loss of services to occur to resign, and replace them with more effective leaders!! Leaders who can beef up sadly lacking experience in rail and infrastructure at both Board and Senior Management level as we have also now reached the limits of our own frustration in our HB/Gisborne regions collectively.

In our experience of trying to work with Kiwi rail executives over these years, we can say with confidence that the Current CEO Greg Miller and his COO Capital Projects and Asset Development David Gordon, are two of those CEAC has identified to be responsible for ‘shut out’ of any public community shareholding input and planning dialogue for any future rail services to our combined HB/Gisborne regions.

Minister of Transport Michael Wood has found in a similar manner that the public had been “shut out” with the “Light Auckland Rail Project” which is not surprising in our views, and the Minister saw this was so shocking to him at the way Kiwi rail had treated the public as a shareholder, that the “Minister is placing a red line under this” and is mandating to bring all groups together to achieve a strong public consultation and inclusion and planning involvement into this project and we can reasonably expect that our HB/Gisborne regions communities also be involved with a new planning to reopen the Napier to Gisborne rail line service finally after 9yrs of being “shut out” by Kiwi rail on the rail essential restoration and future security of all rail services to our two regions after years of neglect.

So in reflection in our HB/Gisborne loss of rail case and the loss of public faith in Kiwi rail we were definitely “shut out” and humiliated from our own experience and this was soul destroying to our regions, after our loss of our rail service in 2012.

Considering since then we had over years still attempted to contact both these Kiwi rail Managers on many occasions, hoping for support from (CEO Greg Miller) and his COO Capital Projects and Asset Development David Gordon with emails to them, requesting to meet to discuss the loss of the rail services, but we have never had any response back to us, “only silence”, even after many issues were raised by the community to our centre and sent to Kiwi rail, with no response from Kiwi rail executives has only raised further loss of faith and frustration in our communities in Kiwi rail with many in the community seeing that no action from them during the last nine years that these two executive managers have been in charge of operating our Kiwi rail public owned asset and infrastructure is operating in bad faith.

The only exception to this lack of leadership, inclusion ,communication, was that some good communication was being offered to us on several phone calls, with the KiwiRail acting group chief executive Todd Moyle who was prepared to listen to our concerns.

So perhaps now is the time to place Kiwi rail into a Government role to reinstate Kiwi rail as a crown owned enterprise under the responsibility of a new appropriately appointed “Minister of Rail” again coupled with another ‘rail engineer’ like the Former excellent Dr Francis Small was during his successful 1980s tenure of rail in NZ, along with the whole financial backing of the reserve bank act to fully restore the rail system to proper function in every province of the country instead of this constant “frustration and anger shown by the following article shown here?

“Frustration is rising at Auckland Transport (AT) over continued surprise disruptions from urgent track repairs, with the council agency telling KiwiRail “trust and confidence” in the rail network is suffering.

Separately, the chairs of AT and its Wellington regional council counterpart, have called for new skills to be added to state-owned KiwiRail’s board of directors, to beef up experience in rail and infrastructure.

In the latest urgent repair to worn tracks, passenger services on the southern line have been less frequent and travelling slower for six weeks, since KiwiRail found more worn rails needing replacement.

“This is deeply disappointing, and is having a significant detrimental impact on the trust and confidence in (both) the rail and public transport network,” wrote AT chief executive Shane Ellison to KiwiRail counterpart Greg Miller.”

Takeout here is; On behalf of HB/Gisborne regions;

CEAC request this Labour controlled Government’s top role must be to reinstate Kiwi rail as a crown owned enterprise under the responsibility of a new appropriately appointed “Minister of Rail” again with a rail engineer as the Ministers advisor, just as the Former excellent Dr Francis Small was during his successful 1980s tenure of Managing Director of NZ Rail Corporation in NZ, with the whole financial backing of the reserve bank act to fully restore the rail system to proper function in every province of the country.

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