New Zealand’s two new Cook Strait ferries will be named Kupe and Cook, and KiwiRail has been confirmed as the operator that will run them for 30 years once they arrive in 2029. Rail Minister Winston Peters made both announcements at Parliament on 17 July, closing off two of the biggest questions still hanging over the long-running saga to replace the ageing Interislander fleet.
Kupe honours the Polynesian navigator remembered in tradition as one of the first to reach these islands, while Cook takes the name of the British explorer James Cook. Peters framed the pairing as a deliberate nod to both strands of the country’s past. He called them “a look to the future with positive recognition of the past” and told reporters “these are proper names, historic names, New Zealand names”. Asked who had chosen them, he replied “history did”.
Peters used much of his speech to pre-empt criticism of the Cook name. He said it had become fashionable in some circles to treat Captain Cook as “nothing more than a symbol to be condemned, cancelled, and cast out”, and predicted “snivelling wokesters” would “work themselves into a lather” over the choice. “A mature country does not run from its history,” he said. “A serious country does not vandalise its memory to satisfy the latest fashion in whinger politics.” He added that the Government “will not allow a noisy minority to dictate what the rest of this country is allowed to remember”.
Behind the naming theatre sits a more consequential decision. KiwiRail, which has run the Interislander in one corporate form or another since 1962, will operate the two new ships for 30 years from their arrival, with a review point set for 2039. Peters pointed to the state-owned company’s long record on the strait, saying “in our book, experience counts”. KiwiRail said Interislander reliability now sits at about 98 percent and that it is on track, pending a final audit, to meet a $160 million earnings target for the year to 30 June 2026. In a statement the company welcomed the confirmation that it would keep the contract.
The two vessels will be built by Guangzhou Shipyard International in China, with construction due to start in 2027 and delivery in 2029. Each ship will be about 200 metres long and 28 metres wide, spread over 11 decks, carrying up to 1,530 passengers and 70 crew. Crucially they are rail-enabled, meaning trains can be loaded straight onto the ships, with room for cars, trucks and rail wagons. That rail capability was the central reason the previous plan was so expensive, because it demanded major rebuilds at both ports.
The numbers are the real story for taxpayers. The Government has capped its own contribution at $1.7 billion and says the total project will come in under $2 billion. CentrePort in Wellington is putting in $100 million and Port Marlborough $110 million, while the Crown company Ferry Holdings is contributing $373 million toward new and modified marine infrastructure at Picton and Wellington. Brian Perry Civil will handle the Wellington works and HEB Construction the Picton side. Ministers say the whole package saves about $2.3 billion against the project it replaced.
That earlier project was iReX, launched under the previous Labour government to replace the Interislander with two large rail-enabled ferries and rebuild the ports around them. The ship contract with Korea’s Hyundai was signed at a total project cost of about $1.45 billion, but by late 2023 the full bill including port work had climbed toward $3 billion. Finance Minister Nicola Willis cancelled the contract in December 2023, calling it “yet another sorry chapter in the story of the previous government’s mismanagement of the Crown’s books”. Walking away was not free. KiwiRail later confirmed the wind-down and settlement with Hyundai and its suppliers cost around $671 million, including money already sunk into landside infrastructure. Critics, including Picton iwi and some maritime commentators, argued the cancellation was hasty and left a hole where a plan used to be.
The Government set up Ferry Holdings to negotiate a cheaper replacement, and Peters has since become the minister carrying the project. The version announced this week is smaller and lighter on port spending than iReX, which is how ministers justify the lower cost, though the ships themselves still keep the rail decks that Willis and others once questioned. The new ferries will also arrive in 2029, roughly three years later than iReX would have delivered its first vessel, and well after the current ageing fleet was meant to be retired.
Labour was quick to call the event a distraction. The party’s transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere said “Winston Peters announcing the names of ferries New Zealand won’t see for another three years is another sideshow from a government that’s become far better at holding press conferences than delivering projects”. The line lands on a genuine pressure point, because the existing ships still have to carry passengers and freight across one of the world’s more temperamental stretches of water for another three winters before Kupe and Cook turn up.
For now the strait keeps running on old steel. The Aratere, Kaitaki and Kaiarahi remain the workhorses, with the ferry link carrying freight, tourists and everyday travellers between the two main islands every day. The decisions made this week set the shape of that connection for a generation, from who runs the ships to whose names they carry. Whether the 2029 timeline holds, and whether the sub $2 billion figure survives contact with a Chinese shipyard and two port rebuilds, will be the tests that matter long after the argument over the names has faded.
Heading into the general election on 7 November, the ferries sit alongside cost of living and infrastructure delivery as issues voters are weighing up. If you want to see where the parties stand before you vote, our voting tool lines up their positions side by side.
What do you make of the names, and of a 2029 arrival date for ships the country needed years ago? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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