More than just the

THIS is not about tourism. This is about a much bigger picture. We all know about interstate highway connections. The only difference with ferries crossing Bass Strait is that you don’t need to build anything.

You only need to charge passenger fares and run the ferries twice a day, all year.

This will extend the Hume Highway from Sydney through Melbourne to Hobart and connect to the rest of our country. It will transform our nation. Tasmania will be a huge beneficiary.

The Bass Strait Passenger Vehicle Equalisation Scheme (BSPVES) was to connect the national highway across Bass Strait using ferries.

The current National Sea Highway campaign began in 1992. By 1996, Paul Keating and John Howard gave it bipartisan support.

The intention was to drop passenger and vehicle ferry fares to highway equivalence and also, from the Coalition, to make Bass Strait part of the national highway. And it is in writing. Imagine how hard that outcome was to achieve, and what business and political support was necessary. The then National Sea Highway committee relied on those promises.

Two ferries were introduced, each capable of a return crossing every day.

From 1996, substantial uncapped federal sea highway BSPVES funding has been in place. Sea-based competition was expected to drive down passenger fares. None eventuated. At the start of the scheme, car prices dropped to nothing. Total fares dropped.

In 2001, a proposed $50, passenger fare was rejected and Howard said, “I’m sorry.”

Peter Brohier

With the aid of the BSPVES, narrow tourism policies focusing on experiential holidays with a reduced car price seemed to overrule highway policies.

Highway policies cater for all travellers, including for visiting relatives and friends and business travel.

The BSPVES was a miracle to suffering businesses.

But, under the fanfare of success, and with two new ferries, the impact of the scheme was being eroded, turning it towards a narrow indirect type of Tasmanian tourism subsidy.

The Bass Strait sea barrier, described as the single greatest barrier to the growth of population, investment and jobs, was being retained.

Value-adding took the place of consistently applied highway fare reduction. Fares varied by the day. What had meaning and made sound sense in a federation of states was being destroyed.

Subsidies skew access and fail to deliver A to B highway travel. Tasmania is not in need of subsidies. It only needs them if highway equalisation is not in place.

The Howard Coalition and Keating offered Tasmania the sort of links they were justified in having under a federation.

Subsidies destroy a level playing field between states and deliver uncertain access compared with the certainty of a highway link.

Subsidies result in a trickle of sea highway travellers entering Tasmania compared with a highway connection.

The Tasmanian economy cannot rely on this type of narrow tourism, firing up the generators of about 10 per cent of GDP. It needs to fire up the 80 per cent generators of GDP — the service and building activities. A volume service, focusing on cars and people, based on highway travel costs or covering wider tourism, will do just that. Growth in population, investment and jobs depends on it. Tasmania is at the doorstep of the largest population corridor in Australia. This is not being used to Tasmanian advantage. So what is the solution? Deliver the full National Sea Highway objectives as promised. Don’t fail to deliver or act to facilitate erosion of equalisation. Put Bass Strait under Infrastructure Australia as part of the Hume-Midland corridor. Federal councils of both Coalition parties had a solution supported by every state branch. It was a proposal for highway transport using ferries.

Recently Canberra began working to achieve what I believe to be a low highway fare outcome for people.

The estimated extra cost, $47 million a year, is equivalent to the amount spent on the existing vehicle equalisation scheme. This could deliver a ferry cost as low as an average of $50 each way, with or without a car.

With clawback from the existing application of the vehicle equalisation scheme and revenue from an equalised volume service, extra cost to the Commonwealth of covering both people and vehicles may be almost nothing more than paid under the BSPVES now. It seems the BSPVES was probably enough in the first place. A volume service at highway fares will benefit most of the economy of Tasmania and southeast Australia.

Before the BSPVES, TT-Line seemed to agree.

There seems no informed mandate for erosion of the two-way sea highway policy or for narrowing the impact of the scheme. Connecting the national highway will make far better use of trillions of dollars of private and public infrastructure along the Hume to Hobart corridor and beyond. The BSPVES offers a payment to the driver. It is not a payment to Tasmania or recognised in the Commonwealth fiscal distribution to the state.

The driver should be given the opportunity of spending the Commonwealth payments on fares reflecting the cost of highway travel, whether on TT-Line or another shipping operator. Other holiday fares can be optional.

Canberra must get the detail of this sea highway framework right, consistent with the comprehensive Coalition Sea Highway policy aimed at delivering such an outcome.

In the case of Bass Strait, tourism must be built on transport, not the other way around. Under Federation and the Howard promises and funding, Tasmanians were entitled to a sea link capable of removing the adverse impact of their separation. Tasmania is far from just a holiday isle. Highway equalisation must be

the main game. Tasmania is a state. Try holiday fares over the bridge at Albury.

It’s time to get so-called Tasmanian tourism policies from dominating Bass Strait. No interstate highways work that way.

Federation was to link the colonies through movement of both people and freight into a national integrated economy. It’s a national solution.

There is every resource in place to make full highway equalisation start to happen for people and passenger vehicles in weeks.

Who will pay the bill for the erosion of the purposes behind the BSPVES?

What explanation will the nation and its government give Tasmanians and all Australians for denying them access to a link used for just living? What answer will they give businesses or shareholders that rely upon people passing the door? What explanation will Canberra and Hobart give those who fought for over a quarter of century for transport equality and succeeded but are yet to see it fully embraced two decades later? It’s time Tasmania and Canberra saw the importance of meeting core promises, not just by funding them.

The Morrison Government has shown a willingness to deal with this issue.

Bass Strait equalisation needs continuation of bipartisan support, as for any other interstate highway.

I trust the Labor leader will also give this matter due consideration. The BSPVES and the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme are parallel schemes and to stop erosion of either is vital.

Maintaining faith in the democratic process regarding this issue is vital.