'Biggest infrastructure project in Tasmania's history:' Delays to Spirit of Tasmania ferries impacting businesses (2024)

Devonport business owner Prema Smith is reliant on the Spirit of Tasmania ferries to help fill up his restaurant every lunch and dinner service.

"When the Spirit comes in at six o'clock it's fantastic for us because we have all the people who are about to go on the ship. They come in here for dinner," he said.

"When the Spirit isn't here the restaurant is quite quiet and the city is quiet. We only want to see life in this town."

He's eagerly awaiting two new Spirit of Tasmania ferries, which will be able to carry 40-per-cent more freight, passengers and vehicles than the current ships.

He's far from alone.

The state's tourism industry is confident the two new ships will be a "game changer" for the sector, and Devonport Mayor Alison Jarman is just as enthusiastic.

"This is going to be a wonderful thing when those ships are running to capacity and the berth is ready, and everything's done. It's going to be wonderful," she said.

But getting to that point has been far from smooth sailing for one of the state's most anticipated infrastructure developments.

Ships' roll out plagued by problems

The vessels have been beset by delays and cost blowouts.

The focus is now firmly on the construction of a new berth facility at Devonport.

The ships will not be able to sail at full capacity until early 2026, when port infrastructure is built at the port's berth three.

That is well after the first ship is set to arrive.

A short-term upgrade of berth one is underway, but won't result in extra capacity, and it's not known how much it will cost, or when it will be completed.

The issue has also caused a political storm, with the government claiming ferry operator TT-LIne kept it in the dark about delays.

That feud came to a head this week when the government asked TT-Line chair Michael Grainger to resign, saying he had "engaged in the blame game" through a Wednesday afternoon press release, despite Premier Jeremy Rockliff's intervention to end the finger pointing earlier that day.

'The quicker the better,' minister says

Transport Minister Eric Abetz said Mr Grainger's departure was needed to "have a change of direction" and get the focus on delivering the project.

"We as a government are concerned about focusing on delivery," he said.

"It is the biggest infrastructure project being delivered in Tasmania's history.

"It will have profound beneficial implications for the Tasmanian economy and it needs to be delivered. The quicker the better."

TT-Line and Mr Grainger declined to comment.

On Thursday, the government announced Damian Bugg AM KC, a board member of TT-Line since 2019, will serve as the interim chair.

Cr Jarman said she was pleased the government had intervened in the project, and wanted the focus to be on delivering the new ships, rather than examining what had gone wrong.

"I believe we feel better going forward and not looking back," she said.

"We are drawing a clean slate. And it is what it is … what we need to deal with is how we're going to make things happen as quick as possible, so that Tasmania can benefit from these new ships."

Spirits key to business expansion

For north-west Tasmanian business owner Scott Seymour, who built a brewery in Devonport with the extra passengers the new spirits would bring in mind, the delays are deflating.

"We've certainly planned for it as we've been told to do at every tourism meeting," he said.

"We've been told to invest, invest, invest and now nothing."

He called for better communication from the government, TT-Line and TasPorts, something echoed by Mr Smith.

"It's really important for such a big organisation like that to touch base with the local businesses around here so we can now accommodate, and think for the future about what we can do to attract more people to come to this part of Tasmania," he said.

Labor Leader Dean Winter said he still had huge concerns about the project, including how it had been handled by the government, the cost of the short-term upgrade of Devonport's berth one.

"We know that the project will cost more than $50 million and could be in place for a very short period of time and we know that it won't deliver additional passengers and freight to our state," he said.

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