The government should own the railways?

On average, everyone strongly agrees with nonconsensus between 84 voters.

Reasons To Disagree

Gummint has no legitimate place in business. CAn't you remeber the shambolic NZR????

Once again, it's lovely to have an infrastructure system we can manipulate through the political leaders we choose - but, at whose expense? There's a reason rail failed in NZ: it's competitors were better and cheaper. For our businesses and commuters to be forced to pay for (through taxes) a train system then pay again to actually use it (to make it profitable) just makes a fool out of every tax payer.

It is not the place of government to run any commercial concern. By owning such they are in effect making us all shareholders in a company open to business risks; they do not have the right to do so.

Reasons To Agree

The government should own the lines and have a majority shareholding in the operator with the rest of the shares restricted to New Zealanders

There will only ever be one railway network, unless someone plans to set up a parallel "competing" network. And how stupid would that be?

As fuel resources diminish rail will become vitally important to this country. It has been badly run down under private ownership. It should never be sold again.

Definitely the lines, maybe one of the operators on it... No reason why other operators couldn't share it and pay a decent fee for using it... In comparison to road user charges, its hard to see why any private company should be subsidised onto the lines.

Yes. The tracks should be owned by the state. If they wish to allow private enterprise to run trains, go for it.

at least 51%

That should be the answer to all the problems actually with the gap of the rich and poor I think.