Michael Ferguson,Minister for Infrastructure and Transport
The Tasmanian Government acknowledges that the reintroduction of some border restrictions resulting from the NSW COVID-19 outbreak to keep Tasmanians safe is impacting on our tourism industry.
Prior to the outbreak in NSW, work was underway to assist with rental car shortages in Tasmania over the peak holiday period.
Tasmania is still welcoming tourists from around the nation, and the Christmas and New Year holiday period is an especially busy time for car rental operations.
To help meet demand we have reached agreement with the Motor Accident Insurance Board to cut the insurance premiums payable for new hire cars for a limited time.
This discount will be made possible by the MAIB providing Class 8 coverage for the cost of Class 1 during the Christmas and January holiday period.
It will apply for the first 500 cars brought into the hire and drive market on a first-in basis.
Further, the Tasmanian Government's provisions under the vehicle hire and drive contract with AVIS Australia, which gives Government agencies priority access to vehicles for hire for Government business, even at short notice, have been waived. Treasury has also requested Government agencies, GBEs and state-owned companies to carefully consider business requirements during the summer 2020 tourism season to minimise the use of hire vehicles.
These measures will ease the pressure on numbers of rental vehicles available in the market.
In addition, the peer-to-peer car sharing app, Car Next Door, is now accredited in Tasmania, which will further increase vehicle hire availability in the state. This app will provide opportunity for Tasmanians to make available their vehicles to visitors to our state, subject to meeting vehicle requirements and checks.
These are just the latest ways we are assisting the hire car sector and visitors to our state, after fast-tracking all the requests to unfreeze the hire vehicle registrations that were frozen under the COVID-19 Business Vehicle Registration Relief package.
This measure was put in place to support transport operators during the travel restrictions, and now nearly all existing hire vehicle registrations are again active in Tasmania.
