The Tasmanian Government has failed to meet its end-of-month deadline to announce a decision on the future of the first new Spirit of Tasmania ferry.
In a “Spirit Replacement Update” on January 31, it was confirmed that TT-Line, the government-owned ferry operator, had received an offer to lease the ship and was considering several other proposals.
“TT-Line therefore require further time to complete these negotiations by the end of February,” the update read.
This followed a January 17 update which reported that various interested parties had visited the vessel in Leith and that discussions were ongoing.
A subsequent February 14 statement reiterated that negotiations were continuing and that the state government “expects to provide an update at the end of February”.
On Friday, the end of the month, no lease announcement was made.
Instead, the government repeated: “TT-Line is in active, ongoing commercial negotiations.”
“Any discussion around the details of a possible agreement is premature and could impact on negotiations.”
“If a lease is secured, details will be provided. If the ship is not leased it will be relocated to Tasmania.”
Labor leader Dean Winter said Premier Jeremy Rockliff had failed to deliver on yet another commitment.
“The Premier was clear,” Winter said. “He said that today was the day he would give us the announcement and there’s still no decision made.”
“Not only did he forget to deliver the berth, he’s forgotten to give Tasmanians the update on when he’s going to finally deliver our ship.”
When questioned on Friday, Minister Felix Ellis declined to provide further details or confirm reports that the ship might stay in Scotland to be used to house Ukrainian refugees.
“These are complex negotiations … Potentially tens of millions of dollars. So we need to work through that. We need to get it right. We need to get the best deal for Tasmania,” he said.
