Legislative Council, Tuesday 1 September 2026
Ms FORREST question to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCTURE and TRANSPORT, Mr VINCENT
The Public Accounts Committee Interim Report found the Spirit of Tasmania failure stemmed from a breakdown in governance and coordination between government-owned entities. Minister, a similar risk now sits over the Bass Strait Islands. TasPorts owns the ports of Grassy and Lady Barron, yet its Port Master Plan does not cover them and the government’s Bass Strait Islands Transport Strategy relies on their performance. This creates a need for clear coordination between the two planning processes. So, my questions are:
- What formal role does TasPorts have in developing the Bass Strait Islands Transport Strategy, and
- How is the government ensuring the strategy and passport’s planning processes are coordinated so the island’s ports are not planned in isolation?
ANSWER
I wanted to seek clarification on that because, obviously, there is a process that’s taking place now. TasPorts is a major player in that area on behalf of all Tasmanian people to make sure the services are adhered but they’re not directly running the inquiry itself, but obviously they’re a big player in it. It’s not something that they would probably prefer to be in, but they are needed there to make sure the services still apply to us, so we would expect a very rigorous program on all that.
The other fact that has come into play as a side benefit to the new CEO Captain Allan Gray at TasPorts is a fresh set of eyes looking through a lot of those sorts of things. But I would like to seek some more clarification on a few of those points and come back to you with a bit more definition around that so that I can make sure that boxes have been ticked as I would expect. I will confirm that and come back to you.