“Wrong way Kiwirail.” 30th March 2017.

Ken Crispin

Kiwi rail’s sudden announcement that it has made a decision to give access to a rail bike venture today 30/317 shutting out Gisborne from any freight and passenger/tourism access requires scrutiny firstly, since it appears rushed without notifying other interest bids.

Kiwirail makes a blunder by refusing to engage with all Maori, and the community groups ahead of the decision to decide to give our rail access to a “rail bike venture”.

On reflection Kiwirail in 2013/14 treated the HBRC very badly when it refused to offer that large powerful Council more than three months over that Xmas to provide a solid business plan.

HBRC has never recovered from that crushing treatment as they had an airtight backing for a complete rail services and funds to maintain the line also and their was an interest from HBRC to work with other parties to allow other uses as a bike trails and other ventures to enhance the whole region, without sacrificing anyone’s interest here.

This seemed the best decision Kiwirail could have made then and made money for the taxpayer to..

Now we find that after three years later Kiwirail held every other interested party in the compete dark, and refused any consultation with any of these parties except the Rail bike interested party any consideration we can draw a reasonable conclusion that this was kiwi rail’s plan all the time to not even consider any rail services at all and we need to have this lack of consideration for the community affected by their callous decision to ignore repeated requests from community groups and Maori for proper consultation given ahead of any decision.

Kiwirail have breached their own State Owned Enterprise Act obligations to engage with the community in which they operate and consider what is in their best interest here, never mind not even considering consulting with the land owners who allowed the rail line access across their tribal land years ago!

I am not a lawyer but Kiwirail have in my mind have blundered and made the wrong move right here.

Much dissention will be generated by ignoring the will of the people over what appears an easier way out for Kiwirail to remove itself from being responsible for providing a urgently needed rail freight and passenger/tourism service to the most isolated regional city/community in the country when we just witnessed Kiwirail restore two south Island rail routs in a heartbeat.

As the article in the Gisborne herald August 23, 2016 entitled “Labour-Greens united on rail” said 'Wrong government in place' to make rail a reality” we now see clear evidence of this so election time we need to rid the rail hating politics for our own good.

In the coming weeks we will see a backlash to this blunder by Kiwirail under the direction of a rail hating government.

It should be clear that none of the other bidders for the rail at this time were even given any discussion or consultation ahead of today’s decision, a bad act of good faith from Kiwirail to our community. Dark forces are emerging here.

I never had a call or any communication at all from Kiwirail though my Company CER Ltd had offered to assist Kiwirail in Environmental monitoring issues for free.?

ends

© Scoop Media