REVEALED: Kiwirail Gravy-Train Has Never Returned a Cent in Dividends

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that KiwiRail has not paid a single dollar in dividends to the government in any year since being designated a State-Owned Enterprise in 2012, with Kiwirail’s own corporate documents confirming the state-owned rail operator returned $0 to the Crown in every year from 2012 through to 2024.

Kiwirail also plans to not pay any dividends at all through to at least 2027.

Taxpayers’ Union Investigations Coordinator, Rhys Hurley, said:

“The 2012 reform separating rail and land was supposed to fix KiwiRail, stripping out the non-commercial assets to finally run it like a business. But well over a decade later, it still hasn’t paid a cent back to the government.”

“KiwiRail has been the poster child for government waste, swallowing billions in taxpayer funds into a black pit of bureaucracy. That’s not a business, it’s a subsidy machine.”

“If this were a private company, it would have been shut down or been sold off long ago. Instead, year after year, politicians keep pumping money into it and pretending it’s an asset.”

“With Budget 2025 just a week away, Nicola Willis needs to show she’s serious about balancing the books. That means putting an end to blank cheques for bottomless pits.”