Ms O’CONNOR question to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCTURE and TRANSPORT, Mr VINCENT
[2.39 p.m.]
The war on Iran and its surrounds is starting to have a significant effect on the household budgets of Tasmanians. With the petrol price skyrocketing and set to climb higher, the cost to move around our city and buy basics is going up. I’m sure we can all agree on that. Our buses are also starting to fill up.
Tasmania’s public transport system is a logical place for government investment when there’s such pressure on petrol prices, because of events beyond the state’s control. We’ve established that the temporary adjustment by Metro in August 2023 saw 177 services cut, and later we were told 120 of those services had been permanently cut. It wasn’t a temporary adjustment, and that is across the Hobart network.
Would you support Tasmanians to meet their already stretched budget and invest in our lagging bus system? Will you commit to reinstating the cancelled services, or at least reinstating services in areas of need to ensure Tasmanians can get to work on time? Will you consider new routes to areas currently not well serviced? Finally, will you commit to working harder to invest in recruiting, training and retaining Metro bus drivers?
ANSWER
Thank you, Mr President. Very appropriate timing, of course, and I can certainly commit to working harder. I don’t think anybody who knows me would ever challenge my commitment to working hard for all of Tasmania. In relation to the bus system, we are already doing half price bus fares, and that’s not the complete answer, but it has been quite interesting outside of the fuel crisis that we’re in at the moment.
We didn’t see much of an uplift in the Metro services, but what we did see was a significant uplift in people travelling between Launceston and Hobart, or Swansea and Triabunna, Bicheno to Hobart, and areas like that, or Huon up, because the cost variation was a lot greater. So there was a learning curve in that for us. All of these things are being discussed as we speak, and there are members of the team who are meeting daily to run the numbers on what we need to do and how we need to do it. I’m sure those are different –
Ms O’Connor – On Metro or the buses generally?
Mr VINCENT – Metro and buses as a whole, thank you. Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. In relation to the driver retention, last year there was two or three intake programs. What they’ve found on previous programs since the shortage, was that there was a lot of people would sign up, and I’m not sure the exact numbers, but a significant number would drop out during the course, or fail to take up the role. In the last two or three courses that happened, which was about the time I came into the role, they had just finished doing one. I know they were doing another because I knew a couple of people in that intake. The uptake of those drivers and the one they had just a few months ago has been extremely high.
So they are well in front of where they need to be to carry the present workload of routes.
State Growth is working through, with Metro and other service providers, how the public transport system can be a lot better. Some of those 120 services that have been deleted were runs that ended up being a bit like a spider, all over the place. The efficiency wasn’t there for people to get to their destinations in a timely manner, because we were stopping and starting like this. In amongst that review was the methodology of saying: how can we make these bus routes and the review better for being streamlined to get to where we have to go efficiently, but in positions for more people to come on board?
There’s several parts of the question that you asked, but all of those lead to a situation that has been forced on us now because of the cost of fuel. The fuel situation is okay at the moment, but everyone of us is concerned about what happens in the not too distant future of a month or so. They are working quite quickly and there may be announcements coming up shortly. I’d like to think of how they will review those runs and make efficiencies for being able to use public transport system better, especially in and around Launceston, Burnie and Hobart, where Metro operate. There is an enormous amount of work being done on all those different areas that you asked the question on.
