Just when Tasmanians thought the ferries fiasco couldn’t get any worse, Minister Eric Abetz has all but confirmed that more delays are expected at the Berth 3 site.

It was less than 6 months ago that Jeremy Rockliff declared he was intervening in the fiasco and he would get it back on track.

Today, it’s looking on shakier ground than ever with Minister Abetz unable to rule out further blowouts to the timeline for Berth 3, while confirming the geo-technical assessment and design process isn't even complete.

The Minister’s underwhelming performance was notable for the amount of information he didn’t know, and demonstrated once again the Liberals do not have control of the project.

Minister Abetz couldn’t provide any answers about whether specialist equipment needed for construction had arrived in Tasmania, whether or not the construction management was working well, and whether key machinery had been damaged and was out of action. 

One of the main reasons the Minority Liberal Government has landed itself in so much trouble over the Spirits saga is because they haven’t come clean on, or haven’t known about, the massive problems facing the project. This saw them lose the confidence of the business community, with the TCCI famously saying it would be difficult to trust Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s minority government ever again.

Given this, you’d think the Minister responsible would have more of a handle of what’s going on – but Mr Abetz proved the Liberals haven’t learnt their lesson at all.

Anita Dow MP
Shadow Minister for Infrastructure