Open up the Bass Strait borders

Tasmania deserves the billions from a national highway, says Peter Brohier

THE national highway can be extended to Hobart by simply reducing the cost of ferry travel across Bass Strait.

By bringing the cost of travel to that of an equivalent distance by road, a seamless transport corridor from the rest of the nation, through Victoria to Hobart and return, can be created. No roads need be constructed.

There is enough unused shipping capacity, uncapped federal transport funding and potential passengers.

The outcome would better use the trillion-dollar Hume to Hobart transport corridor.

Ferry fares are set hourly by a single operator owned by the state of Tasmania, usually higher than the everyday cost of road travel. This causes a barrier and uncertainty inappropriate for an interstate federal highway. Bass Strait is half in Victoria and half in Tasmania. It links our nation.

The Bass Strait Passenger Vehicle Equalisation Scheme (BSPVES) can meet its original purpose, making Bass Strait part of the national highway. Reducing fares will connect highway networks as effectively as a punt over a river.

There are 28 bridges over Victoria’s northern border, but none across its southern one.

There is now little guidance from Canberra or Hobart on the shipping operator to reduce and maintain passenger or vehicle fares at highway travel cost, or to operate the BSPVES to efficiently maximise the passenger/vehicle highway ratio. Coalition Bass Strait policy expected sea-based competition. None came. Value-adding, rather than price competition, seems to have prevailed.

Canberra still didn’t act. Victoria didn’t either, by providing its own service using the still available BSPVES’s uncapped funding.

Current arrangements are not appropriate to connect two state economies needing access to people. The scheme seems to have no ACCC surveillance, no Infrastructure Australia involvement and no community service obligation to meet the needs of travellers.

The BSPVES sea highway policy has been virtually destroyed. Cries for interstate transport equality for people are ignored. While uncapped funding continues, existing surveillance is inadequate to achieve even the equivalent of just one bridge over Victoria’s northern border.

Traffic volumes are curtailed, growth of population, investment and jobs across southeast Australia needlessly restricted.

Other countries have effective marine highways, why not Australia? Bipartisan national support for lowering passenger and vehicle fares was not to be transformed into a form of subsidy for others. Travellers were to be the main beneficiaries.

The BSPVES can deliver the greatest infrastructure link for Victoria and Tasmania since the sea lanes linked the colonies. Economic impact is likely to be in the billions.

The scheme has somewhat met objectives of a limited definition of tourism, but has been of restricted use as a transport link, for more than two decades.

Our Federation was established to join the colonies into an integrated economy through the movement of both people and freight. This can be implemented in days, initially by lowering passenger fares.

When air services resume, air should compete against all interstate equalised highway connections — and include competition on the route between Victoria and Tasmania. Tasmania is not just a holiday isle to be left in permanent lockdown.

Policies that give the impression that Tasmania is just for holidays should not influence access between states. Tourism contributes about 10 per cent of Tasmania’s GDP. The rest of the economy is largely dependent on access to people.

We urge the Prime Minister and premiers, when opening borders, to reclaim Tasmania as a state, with proper interstate linkages.