Wellington firm apologises after worker heckles Winston Peters

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

Winston Peters has squared off with a heckler at at his Government announcement for more than $600 million of rail funding.

A Wellington engineering consultancy has apologised to Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters after an employee heckled him at a pre-Budget rail announcement.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Peters, the rail minister, held a press conference during the commuting peak at the Wellington Railway Station on Tuesday morning to announce the $604 million investment in the rail network. During the press conference, hecklers interjected and one man entirely derailed the event.

“Bollocks,” the man called out, beginning a verbal exchange in which insults were thrown before the press conference ended.

Peters’ office said late Tuesday the deputy prime minister received a call from the man’s employer, Tonkin + Taylor chief executive Dr Penny Kneebone, apologising for the incident.

The man was wearing a Tonkin + Taylor lanyard at the time.

The company said it had confirmed the person involved was an employee and apologised.

“We are investigating in line with our Code of Conduct and for privacy reasons we won’t be commenting any further,” it said in a statement.

“At Tonkin + Taylor we take our responsibilities as a major New Zealand employer seriously. We do not condone behaviour that falls short of our Code of Conduct.

“We sincerely apologise to the event organisers, attendees, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister Bishop, for the disruption caused.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Rail Winston Peters was heckled by a member of the public when making an announcement about rail.

Peters went on Newstalk ZB on Wednesday morning, where host Mike Hosking asked “what should happen to the bloke who abused you?”

Asked if he would feel bad if the man lost his job, Peters replied: “No, I wouldn’t frankly”.

'I don't want to be part of the process anymore, I have said to Tonkin Taylor ‘it's over to you’.'

Earlier, Peters said the funding being announced would replace “decades-old bridges, culverts and other assets from infrastructure to last for generations to come, and provides a bedrock for growth”.

“This is a [funding] tranche for three years and, of course, we'd like more, but in these troubled times, it's still seriously a very worthwhile commitment.”

In total, $461m would go towards maintaining and renewing the national rail freight network, and $143.6m would be invested in upgrading and replacing the Auckland and Wellington metropolitan networks.

Bishop said in the Budget was new money that would complete the three-year funding cycle for improvements, through to 2027. Previously the Government had announced comparable investments, such as $107.7m for the Auckland and Wellington metropolitan networks in 2024.

The total investment for the national rail network in the three-year Rail Network Investment Programme (RNIP) was $1.56 billion, and for the metro rail network it was $524m.

Peters and Minister for Transport Chris Bishop made the announcement at Wellington Railway Station on Tuesday.

“We need to be honest about the fact that we do have a big backlog of renewals in the Auckland and Wellington metro networks. So I'm not pretending for a moment the $143.6 [million] deals with all of those issues. It doesn’t … but, you know, you do these things in stages,” Bishop said.

Bishop said discussions with the regional councils about their contribution to railway improvement costs in both Auckland and Wellington were ongoing.

He said “piecemeal” maintenance over years had increased costs, and the poor state of the network mean longer travel times and disrupted services.

The Greater Wellington Regional Council in April confirmed a decline in train trips taken on the Wellington commuter network from 7.27 million in 2018-19 – the last full year before the Covid pandemic – to 5.34 million in the last financial year. Punctuality had dropped by 6% while reliability was down 0.6%.

The Minister for Rail and Minister for Transport spoke from Wellington Rail Station on Tuesday morning.

Patronage dropped by 7.9% in the past year alone.

Bishop said the train service was critical to Wellington’s economy, and he wanted to see these passenger numbers recover. The investment in the network would help with this.

“We just need to continue to make incremental improvements.”

The Government’s previously announced rail funding included $158m for work to prepare Auckland’s network for the opening of the City Rail Link; $137m to upgrade substations on the Wellington metro rail network announced in December; and $802.8m for the Wairarapa and Manawatū network infrastructure and rolling stock.