Labor calls for more Spirit day sailings (23/8/24)
Tasmanian Labor leader Dean Winter has called on the state government to double day sailings for the Spirit of Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith (23/8/24)
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The spirits of Tasmania, the new ships are incredibly exciting for Tasmania.
00:04What they mean is 40% extra capacity coming in and out of the state.
00:08It means more for our exporters and more tourists coming into the state.
00:12But it is a complete debacle now.
00:14The delivery of these new ships are three years late
00:17and by the time the new berth facilities are finally ready
00:20to fully cater for all of the new capacity
00:23it will be five years delayed and over $500 million over budget.
00:27We're calling on the government to commit to more day sailings
00:30over this coming summer and shoulder seasons.
00:33Up to 150 more day sailings, locking them in,
00:37making sure that we've got that additional capacity
00:40for this upcoming summer season,
00:42means that we'll get more tourists into the state,
00:45which means more businesses here in Launceston,
00:47across the North West, all the way down to the South.
00:50We need to get as many tourists as we can into the state
00:53to make up for the loss of capacity from the spirits not being online.
00:56The other thing we've announced is that we think one of the key letdowns
01:00for the tourism and hospitality sectors
01:02has been the lack of somebody from that sector on the TT line board.
01:06The TT line board needs to have better representation
01:09from the people that it serves
01:11and that's the tourism and hospitality sectors.
01:13I want to see somebody with a background in tourism
01:16sitting on that board so that they can make sure
01:19that the interests of this important sector is realised going forward.
01:26.