OPINION: There's plenty of focus in Nicola Willis' first Budget on Roads of National Significance, Roads of Regional Significance and rebuilding the national and metro rail networks.
However, there's one road and rail connection of national significance that's been shafted: the Cook Strait.
Every year, millions of tonnes of rail freight and road freight is transported across the strait. Millions of passengers and their vehicles travel between our two main islands via the Cook Strait every year too.
But there's a problem: KiwiRail's three ferries are nearly at the end of their working life.
Aratere is the only rail-enabled vessel (it has rails embedded in its main deck so wagons and their cargo can be shunted on). It is 26 years old.
The other two can't take rail wagons. Kaitaki is 29 years old and Kaiarahi is 26 years old.
All three will need an increasing amount of work to stay seaworthy, meaning they're taken out of service to do so, meaning a reduction in services and frequencies.
Privately-owned Strait Shipping, which runs Bluebridge, doesn't have rail-enabled ferries either.
Despite the Cook Strait's importance, there's nothing in the Budget that ensures this vital link is future-proofed.
Instead, they've announced funding to look into a massive floating ambulance; $600,000 has been put aside for a feasibility study for an ocean-going tug that would rescue the ageing current ferry fleet should they (continue) to break down while at sea (like they currently do).
Let's rewind a bit. The first major bonfire Willis announced as Finance Minister was to scrap the Interisland Resilience Connection Project - or iRex for short.
IRex was the result of coalition negotiations between Labour and New Zealand First in 2017. It was a huge policy win for Winston Peters and it saw KiwiRail ink a deal with Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea for two brand new rail-enable ferries.
Steel was about to be laid when Willis pulled the pin - not because the ship-build costs had gone up - but because costs for terminals in Picton and Wellington had ballooned significantly (again).
She was right to intervene because taxpayers were being used as a bottomless pit of money.
But the problem it was aiming to solve hasn't gone away.
The stretch of State Highway 1 and the main-trunk rail line linking the North and South Islands is in desperate need of some love. It needs investment.
Willis called iRex the "Rolls Royce option", and urged KiwiRail to find a "Toyota Corolla option".
But if Willis thinks there are lots of second-hand "Toyota Corolla" rail-enabled ferries available, she’s wrong. There are none.
Few countries have a rail network split in half like ours - let alone with narrow-gauge tracks.
A bespoke option is the only option. And it's not what’s causing the cost blow outs; it's the terminal infrastructure that needs significant upgrades to accommodate the new, larger vessels.
If KiwiRail is forced to take all the containers and non-containerised freight, off rail wagons in Picton, put them on temporary truck and trailer units, put them on the ferries, then re-load them onto rail wagons in Wellington - what is the point in having a rail network? KiwiRail's talked about the viability of the South Island's rail network if this becomes the reality.
How sad is that.
So, what's the plan here? There doesn't appear to be one.
Imagine driving from Palmerston North to Blenheim with your family. You're in your Hyundai Sante Fe on the nice, safe, four-lane motorway Transmission Gully.
You get to the ferry terminal, you have to get out, unpack all your stuff into a second-hand Toyota Corolla with a 2-star safety rating and the road you drive on hasn’t seen any love for 26 years. It's a perilous 3-hour journey but it's all there is.
The Coalition's solution to this - and this is an extended metaphor - is to investigate whether a tow truck is a good idea. Not to upgrade the vehicle, or the road, but to investigate whether to buy a tow truck to pull you out of there. It's not a sustainable status quo (or metaphor).
To her credit, Willis hasn't put this in the too-hard basket just yet. She said the cancelled deal with Hyundai Heavy Industries is still being negotiated and she's put aside money in the MYCA (multi-year capital allowance) for the iRex 2.0 (project name TBC).
In the meantime, the Cook Strait remains just as treacherous to navigate for vessels as it is for politicians.
Lloyd Burr is the host of AM and a former Parliament press gallery reporter.
