Tasmanian families are feeling the squeeze from every direction. Higher interest rates, rising grocery bills, increased insurance costs and sharp fuel price spikes are putting real pressure on household budgets.
In Parliament on 15 April 2026, I spoke in support of free public transport fares as a practical, targeted response to help ease that pressure. This initiative is about giving people immediate relief, more choice in how they get around, and an opportunity to reduce everyday costs during a challenging period.
We are already seeing more Tasmanians using public transport, with strong increases in patronage across the state. That tells us this measure is not only providing relief, but also encouraging people to reconsider how they travel.
Below you can watch my speech and read the full Hansard.
Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Deputy Speaker, I’m so pleased to rise tonight to speak to this important motion brought forward by my friend and colleague, Mr Vermey, the honourable member for Clark, speaking about fares. In this case, it is not just the importance of this particular initiative around free fares for this particular cost-of-living crisis period that every Australian is currently living through. I didn’t hear much about that from the whingeing members of the Labor Party who have been bemoaning their criticisms of some of the struggles within the public transport network in Tasmania. We’re doing this as an intervention to support our families during this particular period. I’ll come to some of those matters in a moment in the time allotted to me, but I want to emphasise that Australians and Tasmanians right now, their household budgets are taking a walloping.
Before we get to Iran and the fuel crisis that that has created, Australians and Tasmanians are paying more for their interest rates. That’s having impacts for renters because in some cases your landlords are passing on those costs to their renters over time – within the law – and as rental agreements come up for renewal, they get reviewed. People who are paying off their home have got massive increases in their interest rate bills from their bank. I doubt that nobody in this Chamber would not have had an email from their bank in the last month telling them that their interest rates are going up. They are. Groceries have increased massively. The price that people are paying today compared to just a few years ago on their family grocery bill is significantly higher. Insurance is high, and the government’s responding to that.
Energy prices. Liquid fuels right now are the current challenge, and it’s taken Tasmanian families and businesses by surprise. I can remember not long ago speaking to a fuel distributor in this state, I would say about six weeks ago, and I was saying to this person, ‘Wow, it’s amazing what you’re able to sell diesel for at the moment, $1.80 a litre.’ I said, ‘How are you doing it?’ We had an interesting discussion about how they were managing their volumes and their margins to give a very good price to commuters – $1.81 I think it was. It was not long ago and then of course we’ve seen the mess in the Middle East playing out and it’s affecting our people here.
I’m saying that because it’s the compounding of the challenge that’s really hurting. The Rockliff Liberal government is responding within the limited means that we have, with the capacity that our budget does have, which is limited. We’re supporting Tasmanian families with this particular initiative, and I applaud my colleague Mr Vermey for bringing this forward because it’s recognising a real problem. I don’t believe I’m inaccurate when I say that nobody’s been calling on the government to do this initiative before the government brought forward this initiative. I may be wrong about that. In the context of the cost-of-living crisis that Tasmanians have been feeling, this was a government-moved initiative.
I want to take us back about four or five years ago when we had half-price bus fares. That was a very similar response to this one that the government has been running for free fares from the end of March through to April, May, and June. That was following the invasion of Ukraine by that monster Putin who then caused so many challenges not just with fuel, but with steel and other building supplies and supply chain challenges; agriculture, fertiliser, the list goes on. We did half-price bus fares. It was successful as well. A very different context. We didn’t have those other challenges with groceries, with insurance, with energy, with interest rates, because they were all – for example, money was being lent at emergency interest rate levels at that time, home loans were like 3 per cent, 4 per cent. It’s double that now. The half price bus fare met those circumstances, and it was something that we were able to afford to do at that time.
This policy that we are discussing is straight forward in design and significant in its impact, about as significant as the impact I just heard across the Chamber. I think it does show how the Rockliff Liberal government cares about our community. This side of the House, we do care. I’m sure members around the Chamber care about their community. We know that we can’t fix all of these problems. I’ve listed many, but this has been one area where we can provide a twofold benefit. Other members will do a better job than me, talking about the public transport benefits. I’ve had a lot to do with public transport as a minister of this government, and we’re very proud of the achievements that we have delivered. I’ll come to some of the more current issues around, for example, new services, but it responds in a way that will support the family budget because many families are not able to fill up the tank right now. Many families have already been struggling with half-filling the tank. When you go through the experience of putting 30 litres of fuel in your car and it costs over $100 we’ve got a real problem because those 30 litres don’t go all that far, for over $100. What a change two months has made.
It’s about allowing people a new choice. Yes, many people are already using and enjoying public transport and so they won’t have to pay the fare for this period of time that they’ve been used to paying – I would argue affordable fares in an ordinary economy, affordable fares with concessions as well for people who need that extra support – but they’re getting that relief of not even having to pay those usually affordable fares, so it’s an overall offset on some of the big challenges that they’re facing with the rest of their budget.
I know it’s the case that people who aren’t accustomed to using public transport have discovered it or have rediscovered it. I think that’s great, and the proof is in the numbers. Mr Vermey, the honourable member for Clark, has already discussed that.
Regarding, cross-metro bus services, from 30 March until 8 April, we saw a 34 per cent increase in patronage on Launceston services and I’m very pleased as a Burnie boy to see a 35 per cent increase in Burnie, the town of my birth, a wonderful community.
I want to say a big thank you. I believe we can agree on this, the bus drivers are frontline public service providers. I do feel for them. They do it tough at times. We ought to all take a moment to thank them for their service to our state and keeping this state moving, as I’ve done on a million occasions about truck drivers, taxi drivers and people who are keeping this state moving.
I thank the providers including Kinetic, Metro, of course, Tassielink, a very wonderful operation, and in my community, Manions and Calows. They all play a role as public transport providers. Yes, Metro seems to always get the mention, but we can’t forget the others. They’re providing essential intercity and regional services and in my community, Manions are actually running urban services up and down the West Tamar and good on them.
I think that the surge of people discovering and rediscovering public transport out of necessity, is saving them big dollars. Yes, it’s maybe not quite as convenient as choosing their time of departure and arrival because they have to fit in with the schedule, but on the other side, they don’t have to pay for parking or worry about having to get to their car.
In the time remaining, I want to take some issue with the relentless negativity of the previous speaker who was decrying the Park and Ride. That is a success of our government. I received no lobbying for Park and Ride in Launceston before we announced that policy. That’s our initiative. Labor weren’t calling on us to do it, we’re doing it. The previous minister who joins us now has already made announcements about two of the three sites. We promised those over four years from 2024, so to suggest that they’re promises not being kept is ridiculous and unreasonable. They were promised over a four-year period and two of the three are progressing. I look forward to Legana being announced when it’s ready because the community will benefit and that’s what we are here for, for our community, not the negativity, for improvements, for outcomes and I, again, thank the members present.
