Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Mr Speaker. Just after 10 o'clock on Friday night I received a phone call from the Maritime New Zealand official based in Nelson who covers the top of the South—Holly Payne—to tell me that the Aratere Interislander had run aground just after leaving the port of Marlborough. During that phone call it became clear that Holly needed to get herself to Picton and so we made the decision to drive over the hill across State Highway 6 through to Picton where we proceeded to speak with some of the KiwiRail staff based at the terminal about what had happened.Over the coming nearly 24 hours we spent time talking to KiwiRail staff and we also spent time with the crew and the passengers who had been on the ship when it went aground. As other members have noted today there will be an inquiry there will be multiple inquiries into what happened. But what is clear to me and what is clear to the people across Te Tau Ihu the top of the South is that the Government's decision to cancel the contract for the new ferries was the wrong one.People are incredibly incredibly frustrated that we now have an Interislander service that is at risk. This is a really serious matter and for me it's very personal. My grandfather Edgar Boyack was the Minister's adviser on the Wahine inquiry. He was the most senior nautical advisor at the time during that inquiry. One of the things that inquiry found was the need to have tugs that were able to haul stricken ships to safety and we got those. Those tugs were replaced between 2009 and 2014 with more powerful tugs but unfortunately they're not actually able to safely take a ship out of open water and to safety.There are a number of things that we need to get right to ensure that we have a safe and sustainable and resilient Interislander service going forward. The people of the South Island and particularly the people at the top of the South rely on the service. We rely on it for tourism. The service brings people to our region who travel around attend events and spend money in our region. We also rely on it to bring goods back and forth between the North Island and South Island and whenever the ferries are out of action our small businesses in Nelson often face delays at getting goods that they are able to sell through their retail shops. It's a very real and pressing issue.We actually had a great deal on those ferries—$551 million for ferries—and members on the Government benches continue to push the false assertion that those ferries wouldn't have been able to traverse the Tory Channel. That is not correct. Those ferries were being custom-built specifically to be able to navigate the perils. Those ferries would have been delivered from next year operational from 2026 and the people of the South Island want to know what the Government's plan is. The Government has continued to spend time in a blame game. Meanwhile all the people of the South Island want is to know what the plan is. We currently only have one ferry in operation the Kaiarahi is under maintenance and who knows what is going to happen to the Aratere. It is incredibly frustrating for us to watch Government Ministers fly in fly out play blame games and not actually listen to the people of the South Island about the need for this service to be operational for it to be safe and for it to be sustainable.I want to finish by acknowledging the crew the many crew who I spoke to who were so professional during what was a very frightening incident that could have led to a large maritime disaster. They deserve better the passengers who travel on these ships deserve better and we in the South Island deserve better from this Government. We need to stop with the heckling and the blame games and have a proper plan so that we can actually get across the strait safely and resiliently. The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.