There is sometimes a thin line between frugal and short-sighted, and the Government’s decision to cancel the Interislander ferry project has fallen on the wrong side of it.
On the surface, Cabinet’s decision to pull the plug on the Inter-island Resilience Connection project (iRex) was exactly what you might expect in straitened times when debt must be managed carefully.
The cost has soared since it was first mooted, much of that increase in the last year or so, reaching $2.8-$3bn. Given the recent experience with other big projects – think Transmission Gully and Dunedin Hospital – further serial price rises were inevitable.
