Kiwirail must urgently explain why it has effectively shut down the Auckland rail network today, causing disruption for thousands of commuters, National's Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“Auckland commuters have woken up to news that almost all of the city’s rail network has been closed due to a Kiwirail ‘track infrastructure problem’ meaning that train lines have been shut down from the West, South, Onehunga and East (which was already shut for maintenance works).

“This will cause chaos for Auckland commuters and follows similar major disruption caused for many thousands of rail passengers in Wellington this week, due to the capital’s rail network having not been checked by Kiwirail’s one and only track evaluation car.

“Kiwirail needs to front up and explain what has gone wrong in Auckland and how long the lines will be shut before they are fixed.

“Labour has allocated more than $8 billion dollars to Kiwirail since becoming Government, but passengers are not seeing the benefits they should expect from that investment. Yet again under Labour, the focus is on spending, rather than delivering better services.

“Transport Minister Michael Wood should also provide answers to Aucklanders about what has gone wrong here. Aucklanders deserve answers, and they deserve them quickly.

“A resilient and reliable public transport network is critical to getting people to use public transport. This failure does nothing to help achieve that shift.”