The Tasmanian Government has spent over $300,000 on freight costs to transport local content to Finland for the new Spirit of Tasmania ferries.
According to Right to Information documents obtained by Labor, TT-Line has paid $316,000 to ship its share of local goods to the Rauma shipyard, where the ferries are being built.
However, the government is yet to reveal the freight costs incurred by RMC, the company responsible for four times the amount of local content on the vessels.
Deputy Labor leader Anita Dow says Premier Jeremy Rockliff could have brought the ferries home by now and is “wasting millions hiding them on the other side of the world” instead.
“TCCI CEO Michael Bailey famously declared that it would be very difficult for business to trust the Rockliff government again after the Liberals bungled the Spirits replacement project,” she said.
“Enough is enough, it’s time for Premier Rockliff to bring our Spirits home, fit them out locally and stop forcing Tasmanians to pay for the incompetence of his government.”
Minister Roger Jaensch said a lot of the local content is “things that need to be fitted and installed on the ships as they’re being built”.
“They’re not things that would have been done here if the ships had been coming home earlier,” he said.
“I think that Labor has had this RTI for a while. They’re flogging it for everything its worth.”
He said major components being shipped like windows and life jackets are things that “you wouldn’t be putting to sea without”.
