Every month the old Spirits sit idle is more money wasted
With the new Spirits to set sail on 31 October, the Liberals must tell Tasmanians when the old Spirits are going to be sold.
The Liberals have known for years that the old ships wouldn’t be required once the new ones started sailing. That day is now just over two weeks away, and Tasmanians still don’t know how long they’ll be paying for their old Spirits.
TT-Line’s own figures show it costs between $600,000 and $1.2 million a month to keep a ship that isn’t in service. Once the new Spirits are sailing, every month the old ships aren’t sold will cost taxpayers more than a million dollars.
Tasmanians have already been paying for four ships for more than a year, even though only two of them have been in service. We can’t afford to pay for ships sitting idle.
TT-Line can’t afford it either. Premier Rockliff’s ferries fiasco has left the company in an unsustainable financial position, and every month the old ships sit idle eats into whatever they eventually sell for.
After 13 years of Liberal waste, Premier Rockliff has put Eric Abetz in charge of cutting jobs and services to pay for it.
There’s no greater example of this waste than the way the Liberals handled the Spirits, and the least they can do for Tasmanians is to be upfront about their future plans for the old Spirits, ongoing costs and what they are doing to reduce these costs.
