EDITORIAL: The news that Fullers360 is up for sale ought to be a wake-up call for Auckland. Not because Auckland Transport should rush to buy the operator at an inflated price, but because it’s a rare chance to claw back contracts and finally build an integrated water transport network.
For decades, Auckland has lived with a ferry system designed backwards: the profitable routes were carved off at privatisation, while the unprofitable ones were left to the public to underwrite. The result? Profits siphoned offshore, losses dumped on ratepayers, and a fragmented network that serves neither commuters nor island communities well.
Other places do this better. Sydney’s ferries are government-owned but privately operated under contract, with all routes integrated into a single system. In Norway, ferries are treated as essential lifelines, bundled under public service contracts. Scotland’s CalMac network cross-subsidises weak routes with strong ones, keeping island services affordable. In each case, government holds the pen on fares, timetables and investment — not a private monopoly.
Auckland is the opposite. When Fullers pulled its Great Barrier Island route after privatisation, it showed how little commercial operators feel bound to community need. More recently, Coromandel was taken offline. Essential links vanish the moment they don’t stack up on a profit sheet. Meanwhile, obscene pricing has taken hold: Sealink is edging toward $2000 return for a family and car to Great Barrier Island, and Barrier Air is often $600 return per person. These are not realistic lifeline prices — they’re walls around communities.
An integrated network, run to deliver public value rather than private rent-taking, is a way forward. Auckland is a city whose whole choke point is that it’s wrapped around a harbour. Our ferries should be the arteries, not an afterthought.
The sale of Fullers is an opportunity — not to overpay a private owner, but to reset the model. Why not bring profitable routes back under public control, bundle them with the lifeline services, and build a ferry system that works like a system. If Norway, Sydney and Scotland can do it, why on earth can’t Auckland?
