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.
Minister, given that about 3 to 6 per cent of Tasmanians are using public transport and a 49 per cent increase is needed for emissions reductions, will you extend the half‑price fares program indefinitely to encourage Tasmanians to make the switch? Are you intending for that to be permanently in place?
What is State Growth's involvement in the trial with the security screens?
Bus services in southern Tasmania are fairly poorly connected and there's a lot of frustration, particularly in regional areas, in relation to reliability of services and the function of the bus network. Often you have, from the far reaches of Franklin or the Tasman Peninsula, you might have a bus trundling up with some passengers up to Huonville and that bus may go all the way to Hobart, whereas there may be a hub‑and-spoke approach to bus services. I am wondering about the thinking and logic behind, perhaps, altering that. This is even to the point where ferries and Metro services aren't even joined up on the eastern shore, so you can't go to Rosny. What's your plan to fix some of those things?
Can you describe that first tranche of the bus rapid transit - where it is going from, the route and where it might land passengers who are coming into Hobart?
Minister, I want to focus back in July, when you did a press release with minister Ellis in relation to the bus rapid transit and the Northern Suburbs Transit Corridor. Could you point me to the reference to the bus rapid transit in the budget papers? Is it there?
Thank you, minister. We hear from the community that limited reliability is a factor in people choosing not to use buses. We also know that the four ingredients of a good public transport service is regularity, reliability, predictability and being on time. We're not really getting that combination very frequently. It's about as frequent as the bus services at the moment. Where is the real‑time information - what on average are delays to Metro bus services?
Honourable Speaker, I rise again to speak about the Mac Point Stadium, now that it has gone to be considered as a project of state significance. We have heard that impassioned discussion around football and why there is no need for a stadium, how disadvantaged the north‑west is from the member, Mr Garland.
Making sure public transport access is designed into new facilities is critical. It is especially critical for a mega‑project like a stadium at Macquarie Point.
The number of Tasmanians catching Metro buses show that the Liberals half-price fares are not doing enough to encourage Tasmanians to use our broken public transport system.