It is abundantly clear that the Liberal Government is not doing enough to improve bus driver safety and retention, and Tasmanian public transport users are suffering as a result.
Despite Minister Ferguson's "temporary" axing of 180 services to improve perceptions about just how badly his Government has handled public transport over the past 10 years, 20 services were still scrapped yesterday.
Since his cynical PR exercise, and ever since bus cancellations became a problem earlier this year for that matter, Minister Ferguson clearly hasn't addressed the root causes of the issues.
Rather than spending all its energy managing its image problem, this government needs to look at innovative ways to attract and retain drivers, and even more importantly, keep them safe.
Labor has launched a petition to call on the Government to urgently address the ongoing recruitment and retention issues impacting Metro Tasmania's workforce and the lack of consideration by the Government in regards to the pay and conditions of drivers to improve the situation.
The petition also urges the Government to address safety issues for Metro Tasmania passengers and drivers and the lack progress on the rollout of Transit Officers with powers to curb antisocial behaviour and the installation of security screens.
After 10 years in office, this is yet another example of the Liberals running Tasmania's essential services into the ground, with no plans to fix the problems they've created.
Josh Willie MLC
Shadow Minister for Transport
