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Rail Ellerslie freight feature

AucklandJuly 27, 2017

Finally revealed: report shows rail destroys roading for Auckland freight

Guest writer
Rail Ellerslie freight feature

The business case for greater freight efficiency in South Auckland has finally been released, and it turns out that a new “Third Main” rail line is the best of 10 options. Guess what’s worst? Putting greater reliance on road freight. So why, asks Ben Ross, does the government still insist on favouring trucks instead of funding the rail option?

Back in June, KiwiRail refused to release the full business case for building the “Third Main” – a rail track from Otahuhu to Wiri beside the existing two tracks. Instead, it released a heavily redacted version. Now the unredacted version has been released – and its contents are a shocking indictment of government policy.

The purpose of the proposed Third Main is to allow freight trains to have a dedicated track separating them from passenger services on the most congested part of the Auckland rail corridor. For a cost of $65 million, KiwiRail would be able to run six extra freight trains a day and Auckland Transport would be able to move towards getting frequencies for passenger services up to every 10-15 minutes all day. The Third Main would, in theory, also enable better express passenger services between Pukekohe and Britomart once the City Rail Link becomes operable.

Rail freight going through Papatoetoe (Image: nzrailphotos.co.nz)

The heavily redacted business case was analysed by The Spinoff, The Nation, Greater Auckland and my own site Talking Southern Auckland. We speculated on what the redacted parts were and why they were redacted in the first place. One theory was that ‘Option Five’ (which was fully redacted) might have been the Metroport facility in Southdown moving, throwing freight movements up into the air. Metroport is owned by Port of Tauranga.

The unredacted business case was released on Tuesday in response to pressure from Harriet Gale of Greater Auckland. It reveals that Option Five was actually building a Third and Fourth Main (two new sets of tracks) at the same time. Here is the previously redacted Option Five:

The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) uses a “Multi Criteria Analysis” (MCA) to assess funding projects. This was also previously redacted but is now visible. The report reveals that the Third Main had the second-best score in terms of benefits over costs. So what came out as the lead scorer? Here is the MCA:

Building a Third and Fourth Main together (P8 in the table), with a price tag of $200 million, came out first along all criteria lines. Building the Third Main on its own (P9), at a cost of $65 million, was second. Both were well ahead of any other options.

Shifting more freight by road (P3 in the table), which would require upgrading the Southern Motorway, came out worst.

NZTA’s modelling is not as effective in measuring wider benefits and costs as we would like it to be. Just look at the line “Cultural, Social and Environmental Effects”, where all the options are scored 0. That’s a neutral score and shows that cultural, social and environmental effects are not even assessed.

But we know that widening the Southern Motorway should have a negative score because it would result in houses being demolished, congestion getting worse and pollution also getting worse. We also know the two rail options, the Third and Fourth Mains, should have carried a positive score. Both would lead to more efficient freight train operations (economic), mitigated congestion on the motorways (economic and environmental) and more frequent passenger trains. That last one would have economic benefits, cultural benefits (via connectivity and accessibility) and environmental benefits (decongesting the motorway).

Without factoring in a proper analysis of cultural, social and environmental effects, the Fourth Main has a business case ratio (BCR) of +0.8 to +1.1. That’s the best of the 10 options, but it’s not great. But with those effects factored in, the BCR is likely to be +3.0 or more. That’s good.

Conversely, the BCR for relying more on roads (Option Three) is currently given as -1.5 to -2.2. With cultural, social and environmental effects included, those figures would be even worse.

In fact, if you look back at the Multi Criteria Analysis, the gulf between the Third and Fourth Mains and all other options is enormous. The new mains have double digit positive scores. All other options have negative scores.

Rail freight passing Ellerslie (Image: nzrailphotos.co.nz)

So, two questions.

1. Why was the business case redacted – especially for the Fourth Main?

The answer is surely politics. It seems to come down to an attempt to protect the position taken by the government.

The redacted material wasn’t commercially sensitive and nor would its publication have harmed the free and frank debate between officials and the minister. Instead, it contains a clear-cut case to build the Third and Fourth Mains as quickly as possible, and definitely before the CRL opens (2023 on current estimates).

The redacted MCA also completely demolishes the roads-first argument, with clear implications for the future of the proposed East-West Link (currently before a Board of Inquiry, with no business case and a BCR of 0.96).

2. Why does the government persist with the option of more roads for more road freight?

This question has been asked repeatedly by all the media organisations and many analysts following the issue, including politicians at central and local level representing nearly all non-government parties. The report discussed here was jointly prepared for the government by the NZ Transport Agency, KiwiRail and Auckland Transport. It recommends – that is, they all recommend – that the extra rail line or lines be built as quickly as possible.

The government’s continued support of the road freight industry in preference to expanding the role of rail, in the face of the data in this report, makes a complete mockery of its claim to prudent economic management. It makes, instead, a pretty good case for incompetence, or cronyism, or both.

Remember, it’s recently been announced we’re getting more passenger trains and more infrastructure to enable more housing in Southern Auckland. On top of the growing demand for freight trains, the case for building the Third and now Fourth Mains will soon be desperate.

More Reading

By the way, the government’s infatuation with motorways and highways that look like motorways has produced a new set of drawings for that proposed East-West Link. NZTA wants it to look like this:

Artwork for the proposed East-West Link.

Instead of the best kind of rail, we’re currently on track to get this: the worst kind of road. And it’s going to cost around 10 times as much as the Third and Fourth Mains.

The Spinoff Auckland is sponsored by Heart of the City, the business association dedicated to the growth of downtown Auckland as a vibrant centre for entertainment, retail, hospitality and business.

Keep going!
A still from the Kim Dotcom movie. Photo: Nigel Marple.
A still from the Kim Dotcom movie. Photo: Nigel Marple.

AucklandJuly 26, 2017

Bigger than Ben Hur! Introducing Kim Dotcom, the movie

Guest Post
A still from the Kim Dotcom movie. Photo: Nigel Marple.
A still from the Kim Dotcom movie. Photo: Nigel Marple.

Director Annie Goldson introduces her Dotcom documentary and the one she calls its antithesis; and Julian Boshier talks about working with Wellington band Head Like a Hole for 15 years. Welcome to part five of our Film Festival filmmaker’s choice series.

Kim Dotcom director Annie Goldson recommends Waru

I’m really keen to see Waru, possibly because it’s the antithesis of my own film Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web.

Waru follows the lives of eight women all connected by the death of a Māori child at the hand of his caregiver, through eight self-contained vignettes. Each vignette follows a lead character, who, in line with instructions from the producers, is living in “the same moment in real time, and shot in a single take”. Each is directed by a different Māori woman director. The makers did a knock-out session at the Big Screen Symposium last year so I knew about its development.

Waru attracts me for a number of reasons. First, it’s another of the “only in Aotearoa/New Zealand” films that will be genuinely culturally unique. It sounds formally elegant, innovative and full of risk-taking, as the filmmakers explain in a great podcast recorded at BSS. And it’s made exclusively made by Māori women, who are, of course, majorly underrepresented in the industry at large.

Waru  (dir. Briar Grace-Smith, Casey Kaa, Ainsley Gardiner, Katie Wolfe, Chelsea Cohen, Renae Maihi, Paula Jones)

Other things also strike me. Waru engages with a heart-breaking issue of profound importance, one our country seems incapable of addressing or even understanding. And it’s a collaborative effort that works against the usual ego-driven necessities of the film business, be it studio or independent. Collaboration is not always easy but it can be a relief.

Speaking of ego-driven necessities, I hope you won’t mind that I take this opportunity to promote our own film. It’s been a fascinating and nail-biting journey. Perhaps, despite its differences, it does share some things with Waru — a riskiness, at least. Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web is part biography and part exploration of a series of issues that frame the infamous tech entrepreneur’s story. They go to the heart of our digital age: the struggles over how we consume entertainment and information; surveillance and privacy; and sovereignty.

I sometimes imagine the film being watched by many unidentified pairs of eyes, beaming and blinking through the bushes in a cartoon night: Dotcom himself, multiple figures in the New Zealand government, the US government, the FBI, the Five Eyes spying alliance, the Department of Justice, the Motion Picture Association of America, Anonymous and a brigade of tweeters ready to troll, etc.

I managed to access some brilliant commentators from around the world, including Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Wales, Larry Lessig, Moby and Gabriella Coleman. These thinkers were so fascinating and I travelled far to interview them. My interviews were very long. When the excellent (and patient) editor Simon Coldrick and I began to knit the film together, we not only had to wrangle hours of in-depth and complex interviews, but also weeks of court footage and hundreds of hours of archive. And finally, at the last moment, a six-hour interview with Kim Dotcom himself which I was never sure I would get.

Giant handcuffs or a miniature Kim Dotcom?  (From Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web, dir. Annie Goldson)

Added to this, a deluge from his extraordinary archive, which swung from jagged hand-held intimate home movies to super high-end footage, shot by three Red cameras suspended from helicopters circling superyachts. Crafting the central through-line of this crazy quilt of a film took time, effort and massive persistence, particularly because I chose not to use a narration or place myself in the film.

With so much passion, opinion and interest at stake, the “independent” in “independent filmmaker” became critical. Perhaps in the end you make a film that truly pleases no one. When the film premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, I was relieved audiences and reviewers seemed to understand. Ars Technica, an edgy and insightful tech magazine, said “Goldson has produced that rare thing: a documentary about a controversial Web personality that is balanced and informative”, while according to Rolling Stone: “Whether you think he is a hero or heel, you’re bound to leave the film with your preconceptions shattered.”

For any filmmaker, that’s praise indeed.

Kim Dotcom:  July 29, 31; August 6.
Waru: August 2, 6.

Christopher Rainey and Christine’a Rainey in Quest. (dir. Jonathan Olshefski)

Swagger of Thieves filmmaker Julian Boshier recommends Quest

Quest is the ultimate documentary – intimate,  bleak,  affecting but ultimately positive. It’s a slice of life that my middle-class white ass will never experience, a study of an African American family living on the rough side of Philadelphia North.

The Rainey family live under the bright hope of the Obama administration, not that Obama policies have improved anything much for them. And even though Trump is on the campaign trail, the Raineys are numb to his evangelical TV message. On the verge of poverty, living in substandard housing and struggling with low pay, they’re captured in their rawest form, downtrodden, not least because of the colour of their skin, but striving to maintain some sense of dignity and generosity. Despite the hardship they’re engaged with and committed to their community.

As if the story isn’t already full of struggle, it intensifies as ill-health unfolds and a major event involving a child suddenly heightens the tension and hopelessness. When I saw it, there were gasps from the audience during this section.

Quest feels like it was made by one person and his camera, which lends to a very intimate and close-proximity telling of the story. That one person is Jonathan Olshefski who, to my eye, with his touch, restraint and empathy, has produced a masterpiece. Layered with powerful beats, affecting lyrics and immense atmosphere, Quest could be the best documentary I’ve ever seen.

As for my own film, Swagger of Thieves, it’s the story of the band Head Like a Hole and it’s my first attempt at documentary.

Head Like a Hole in Swagger of Thieves (dir. Julian Boshier)

Filming took place over approximately 15 years in a very haphazard nature, so you see the ageing of the characters and the maturity that comes to them (or not). All past and present band members appear in the film, and the long-term nature of the project gives it a character that not many other documentaries possess.

I wasn’t interested in following a formula for this film, but wanted a unique and fresh approach. From the outset, I insisted it was going to be a warts-and-all film and there would be no censoring or editorial control by the band. Some people may find portions of it quite confronting, but it’s real and it’s what happened. What occurred or was presented to me by the band is what I have presented in this film.

This band is full of characters. Booga Beazley has a sparkle in his eye, he’s funny and natural, often incredibly open, and he tells it like it is. Nigel Regan wanders around looking like a haggard Keith Richards. He can be just as open, when the mood takes him. Between these two characters and the ongoing pathology of their personal demons and uneasy marriage in music, an undeniable positivity and Kiwi battler mentality shines through – sometimes.

My aim was to make a film with heart and to have a strong complex narrative and a healthy dose of grunty music. It’s a no-budget production and I hope it’ll resonate with fans and non-fans alike.

Quest: July 28; August 5, 6.
Swagger of Thieves: August 3.

For bookings and more on the festival, visit the official site. Lots of trailers are here. And don’t miss The Spinoff’s top ten festival film picks, plus other filmmaker recommendations here, here, here and here.

The Spinoff Auckland is sponsored by Heart of the City, the business association dedicated to the growth of downtown Auckland as a vibrant centre for entertainment, retail, hospitality and business.