Tasmanian Labor wants to revamp TasPorts, strip TT-Line of its debt and share the bill for Bass Strait with Canberra – a structural overhaul aimed at ending the Spirit of Tasmania bailout cycle for good.
Delivering his budget reply speech on Tuesday, Labor leader Josh Willie cast the proposal as the centrepiece of the party’s economic agenda.
The pitch comes days after the state government’s 2026-27 budget handed the ferry operator a $506 million bailout over four years.
That comes on top of a $75 million top-up in November. TT-Line’s borrowing limit was also lifted from $990 million to $1.4 billion during last year’s election.
The project to build the new Finnish-built Spirit of Tasmania IV and V ferries has blown out by roughly $717 million.
The Devonport berth needed to receive them has ballooned from about $90 million to more than $490 million.
“The Liberals bought two ships and forgot to build a berth to receive them,” Willie told parliament.
“They sent TT-Line, which was a profitable business, broke.”
Under Labor’s plan, TasPorts would be stripped of its government business enterprise status and folded into the state government as a transport infrastructure body.
TasPorts is the state-owned company that runs 11 Tasmanian ports and Devonport Airport.
It also provides pilotage and towage services and operates the Bass Island Line freight route.
Willie said TT-Line’s vessels, terminals and debt would transfer to the new entity, leaving the ferry operator to focus solely on running Bass Strait crossings.
“TT-Line will emerge debt-free and become a lean operating company capable of returning dividends to the state budget,” Willie said.
The new entity would be measured on “asset condition, network reliability and capacity utilisation” rather than profit.
Debt would be treated as transport infrastructure investment, in the same way road and rail debt is treated on government books.
“This reform will retain full Tasmanian government ownership and operational control of TT-Line and the new transport infrastructure entity,” Willie said.
“This is about fixing the structure and reducing risk. It’s about putting Tasmania’s most important transport corridor on a more sustainable footing.”
The second plank takes aim at Canberra. Labor wants a long-term Commonwealth Sea Highway Funding Agreement.
It would treat Bass Strait as part of the National Land Transport Network and unlock federal capital funding.
“Bass Strait is Tasmania’s highway,” Willie said. “It just happens to have water on it.”
He said every other state received Commonwealth capital funding for its highways and that Tasmania was left to shoulder the cost of its critical transport corridor alone.
Willie invoked former Labor premiers Eric Reece and Jim Bacon, drawing a line from the building of the Hydro and the original Spirits service to the reform he is now proposing.
“That is the ambition Tasmania needs again,” he said. “Not more bailouts. Not more patch-ups. Not more Liberal waste.”
Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the plan sounded like “a huge bureaucracy”.
“From what I can gather, he’s abolishing TasPorts, abolishing TT-Line,” the premier said.
“The day where the leader of the opposition had to land a significant policy announcement, he has demonstrated the fact that Labor are still all at sea.”
