The Liberal government has compounded its botched handling of the replacement of the Spirit of Tasmania vessels with unnecessary secrecy over the cost of the new ferries.
Before the 2018 election, the Liberals promised that the first of the new Spirit of Tasmania vessels would be delivered in 2021 and that Tasmanian businesses would be involved in the fit-out.
But after cancelling the original contract with German shipbuilder FSG, the former Premier Peter Gutwein announced a deal with Finnish builder RMC, before putting that on hold in 2020, only to backflip again and announce the Spirits would be built in Finland after all.
Not only did this delay the first vessels' delivery, the government's dithering and flip-flopping also blew out the cost of the project from $688 million to at least $850 million.
With the impact of recent inflationary pressures likely to have driven this up even further, Tasmanian Labor requested information on the total cost at recent Government Business Scrutiny hearings.
But, the response received today says TT-Line cannot provide the total cost because "the executed contracts for the replacement vessels specifically state that neither party will disclose the contract price".
It beggars belief that the Liberals can't or won't tell taxpayers how much of their money they will have to spend replacing the Spirits.
It is even worse when the government's failure to replace the vessels in 2021 as promised is estimated to have cost the state $350 million a year in lost economic activity.
Not only has this government made a complete mess of the Spirits replacement, bungling the delivery of yet another major infrastructure project, it is now hiding the true cost to taxpayers of its own incompetence behind commercial confidentiality.
Rebecca White MP
Labor Leader
Shadow Infrastructure Minister
