Former National Party Prime Minister Jim Bolger has been dumped as chairman of KiwiRail and is likely to lose his position as chairman of New Zealand Post and Kiwibank when his current term ends this year.
Mr Bolger's removal as KiwiRail chairman is no surprise given the antipathy towards him that exists within the National Party caucus following his appointment in 2001 as chairman of Kiwibank - the brainchild of Mr Bolger's former political opponent and Alliance Party leader Jim Anderton.
The antipathy was aggravated when Mr Bolger was appointed chairman of KiwiRail after the company was bought back by the Labour Government from Australian conglomerate Toll Holdings at a well-inflated price in 2008.
Whether or not this signals the Government's intentions towards the country's railway system is hard to say. It will make sense to any competent businessman, however, that if the taxpayer is going to get any return for the hundreds of millions that were paid to Toll, then the amount of freight carried by KiwiRail is going to have to substantially increase, although yesterday's announcement (see previous post) make clear where the Government's allegiances lie as far as that is concerned. There will be no private concern willing to pay anything like what the Labour Government spent and a sale by the present Government at a substantial loss to the taypayer would not look good.
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