8. Chairperson’s Report

Cr Forbes spoke to the report and confirmed that Total Mobility has been included in the half-price fare reduction to the end of June 2022. Cr Forbes then asked for any questions or discussion on the Chairperson’s report.

• Cr O’Malley spoke about the recent South Island Freight Summit and said from his perspective it missed out on a lot of Otago and Southland. He said he has raised with the DCC Transport team where we are at with the inland port at Milburn and asked if the RTC has a role to play to get a regionwide strategic document put in place, in terms of freight transfer and the role of an inland port for meeting these goals. Cr O’Malley said that it is an inter-regional issue for Otago and Southland and thought a feasibility study should be done first. This will be raised with James Caygill during his report.
• Cr Baird asked if the RTCs could look at hydrogen for heavy freight in the Otago and Southland region saying there was more work required to understand where we are going with hydrogen. Cr McCallum said there was a bigger question than just where the nearest hydrogen station will be; rather how we are going to transfer from a petroleum-based fuel system to alternatives and asked what the Government and Waka Kotahi were doing.
• Cr Smith said there have been discussions regarding transport change at different levels and felt the Committee probably needs to do additional work in the transformation space and change management areas.
• Garry Maloney spoke about having a KiwiRail representative on the RTCs, saying that it is a decision of both the Otago and Southland Regional Councils to appoint advisors to their Committees. For KiwiRail to be appointed as a full member would require approval of the Minister. He said that there is nothing to stop the Committees having advisors who would have speaking rights, but not voting rights.