Mike's Minute: Our infrastructure is an embarrassment to the country

Published: June 23, 2024, 8:46 p.m.

Here is the real problem with a ferry running aground.\xa0

It comes in the same week the plane didn\u2019t work and the same week a transmission tower fell over.\xa0

It's pathetic. This country is on its knees and it's embarrassing.\xa0

As we said last week, the upside is it might just be so embarrassing we actually now get around to doing something about it.\xa0

KiwiRail need an investigation into how they have run the business.\xa0

Sadly, I note Helen Clark yet again weighed in via social media with another one of her petty barbs about cancelling the ferry contract.\xa0

What we need are adults. Read the papers that have been released publicly between KiwiRail and Grant Robertson.\xa0

Even he was aghast at the blowout in the ferry budget, despite KiwiRail over and over again reassuring him their latest estimate was the final figure, until it wasn\u2019t.\xa0

When Grant Robertson is aghast at a blowout you know it's gargantuan.\xa0

So this is as much on KiwiRail as it is on any Government.\xa0

But you can only embarrass yourself so much and so often before that becomes part of the country's psyche.\xa0

A recession is one thing and its outworking has an effect on us all both psychically and psychologically.\xa0

But you want to, in some way, feel there is something about this place that is decent and proper and rewarding. You want to feel good about your country.\xa0

The Prime Minister can't travel the world promoting business and saying we are open when the planes don\u2019t fly and the ferry runs into stuff and the power is out because towers fall over.\xa0

We must do better.\xa0

We have to wake up to the fact this country has, in too many respects, been run into the ground. It looks increasingly third world.\xa0

The fear is the battle between the size of those who care and those who don\u2019t is not that obvious.\xa0

The fact we can be in this mess and all former Prime Ministers can do is snipe is an increasing worry.\xa0

We are reaping what we sowed.\xa0

If this doesn\u2019t strike you as an emergency, we are in deeper trouble than I thought. \xa0\xa0

LISTEN ABOVE.\xa0

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