A “secret” third payment of €8 million (AUD$13 million) was made to the Finnish shipbuilder of the new Spirit of Tasmania ferries over two years ago, according to Labor.
The Public Accounts Committee revealed last week that TT-Line agreed to the additional payment in April 2022 to cover steel price increases caused by the war in Ukraine.
TT-Line Chair Michael Grainger said the price adjustment was necessary to avoid exposing the company to acting in bad faith and damaging its relationship with the shipbuilder.
Grainger said he told Minister and Treasurer Michael Ferguson about the price change in a letter on Anzac Day, which Labor Leader Dean Winter claims was not passed on to the rest of parliament.
“Not only did Michael Ferguson hide this eight-figure extra payment from Tasmanian taxpayers, he also appears to have misled a Government Business Estimates hearing six months later,” Winter said.
“Delays, cost blowouts, dishonesty. Once again the Liberals’ inability to deliver big projects is on full display.”
Transport Minister Eric Abetz has dismissed Winter’s “latest attack”, which he put down to “commercial inexperience and ignorance”.
“If TT-Line had followed Labor’s apparent advice, Tasmanians would have been left with two half-finished vessels on the far side of the world, hundreds of millions of dollars extra in costs and an even longer delay in the delivery of the job and economy boosting new ferries,” Abetz said.
“Faced with the shelling of the steel manufacturer in the Ukraine and resultant increased cost in materials, it was common sense and commercial reality for TT-Line to vary the fixed price contract with the shipbuilder while retaining the status of a fixed price contract.”
“Is Mr Winter really pretending to suggest his commercial expertise is superior to that of the TT-Line Board?”
The first of the two new ferries is expected to arrive in Tasmania by the end of the year.
