00:02Travelling down the British coast, Spirit 5 wraps up its four-month stay in Scotland.
00:08Really excitingly, Spirit of Tasmania 5 departed Leith in Scotland last night and is now on its way back to
00:16Australia.
00:17The new ferry will take about seven weeks to reach Australia, where it will be stored in Victoria with Spirit
00:244.
00:25Contractors hard at work in Devonport to build the port for the ships, with key pieces of a 400-tonne
00:31gantry installed this week.
00:34This is the final critical and really complicated part of the build, but as you can see the first two
00:40of seven pieces are in place.
00:42But there's questions over how much it's costing Tasmanians.
00:46What we need to hear from the Premier is how much it's cost them to store Spirit 5 in Scotland
00:52away from the eyes of Tasmanians.
00:55Look, that would get to be determined. We'll know those figures, of course, when the journey's completed.
01:01Spirit 4's stay in Scotland cost Tasmania about $6.4 million, but it was there for about twice as long.
01:08TT Line says the final costs for Spirit 5 will be released once they're confirmed.
01:14And as those questions continue, attention is also turning to pressures on Tasmania's ambulance service.
01:21Because we're working so many shifts down, like even today in Launceston we're two crews short, that increases the workload
01:28for everybody.
01:29And with that, that increases the fatigue, it's not being able to get breaks.
01:34Health department data showing the number of full-time equivalent paramedics dropped from 321 to 302 between June and September
01:44last year.
01:45We are losing paramedics, we are not increasing the numbers that we see, and those short staffing issues have only
01:51gotten worse.
01:52The Premier refutes that.
01:54I can assure you that we have around 50 more Ambulance Tasmania staff in place since, of course, our recruitment
02:03blitz in around 2024.
02:05The Premier refutes that.
02:09The Premier refutes.
02:09The Premier refutes.
02:12The Premier refutes.
02:12The Premier refutes.
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