Ms BURNET – Minister, you talked a bit about DDA compliance with electric buses and that’s why you might undertake a trial before purchasing; I understand that. The bus stops and DDA compliance is woeful across most of Tasmania, so I’m just wondering what you’re doing to rectify the situation and making bus stops up to standard, up to DDA compliance.
Mr ABETZ – We do have a program and somebody will soon tell me where to find the detail of that.
Ms BURNET – I see there’s $2.5 million, about $10 million over four years for that.
Mr ABETZ – We made a 2021 election commitment of up to $10 million to provide all-access all-weather bus stops at priority locations. That represents the largest single injection of funding for bus stops and is delivering improvements to infrastructure across the board.
I understand that smaller councils, in particular, have received grants to date, although Launceston City Council has been a keen participant and has received grants for a total of 68 stops across the two rounds and has completed 27 to date. Some larger southern councils have refuted having any responsibility for bus stop provision and maintenance, and either have not made application or sought bespoke arrangements for participation which have not been accepted.
We have a fund and round three of the program opened in August of this year. State Growth has reached out to those councils that have not previously participated in the grant program to encourage them to apply for round three. High priority bus stop upgrades along key state road corridors are also being addressed with this election commitment funding. Is there a lot of work to do due to neglect over decades? Yes there is, but we have made the largest amount of money ever available for that and we’re trying to rectify the situation. However, we won’t be able to do it overnight.
Ms BURNET – As a follow-up question –
Mr LIMKIN – Sorry, Ms Burnet, I just want to add that the Department of State Growth takes disability inclusion really seriously. We have spent the last two years working across the department to ensure we had tangible actions for disability inclusion. Some of those include, as the minister said, improving infrastructure at bus stops and engaging with the minister and Premier’s Disability Advisory Council to help us design these programs. We are committed to creating accessibility across all of our portfolios because it is really important that our community has that access.
Ms BURNET – I’m very pleased to hear that.
Mr ABETZ – I can also add, if I may, 162 bus stops across the state will have been upgraded to full compliance with disability standards over the first two rounds of the grant program. I think Mr O’Byrne asked me a question first of all to do with Oakdale, but then generally the disability sector. Minister Jo Palmer and I held a roundtable dealing, amongst other things, with disability access to transport and public transport.
Ms BURNET – So 162 bus stops, that’s fantastic. How many bus stops would there be in total across Tasmania?
Mr ABETZ – I would anticipate – who does the bus stop counting?
Ms HEYDON – We’ll come back and confirm.
Mr CRANE – The majority of bus stops are on local roads.
Ms BURNET – What does that mean?
Mr CRANE – That is one of our challenges with councils, and as the minister alluded to, I would like all councils to participate in the program.
Ms BURNET – Well, there’s a lot of transport property in your electorate, minister, as there is in the northern suburbs of Hobart.
