00:01So we actually asked the state government today about whether they were looking at making
00:08public transport free sort of indefinitely and they said yeah it's something they are
00:12considering.
00:14They said they've been looking at sort of the number of people that have really embraced
00:17it since they made it free earlier in the year and you know they think it's had an impact
00:23on traffic flow and it just makes it more accessible but they've got a lot to sort of
00:28weigh up when it comes into that because obviously we know that's going to be expensive.
00:32We found out during the May budget that they were going to make public transport free until
00:38July next year and at the time they quoted that at a cost of about $24 million.
00:42So obviously you know it's something that they have to sort of look into when a Tasmania's
00:47budget is not in a particularly great state so they've got to weigh up obviously the cost
00:51of that measure versus sort of public benefit.
00:54Yeah.
00:55And how long has free public transport been in place in Tasmania and why was it introduced
01:00in the first place?
01:02Yes Jade so they brought it in in March this year and it was in response to the high fuel
01:07prices.
01:08At the time it was only meant to be going until I think it was about June 30 but then
01:12we found
01:12out in the budget that they decided to extend it for that exterior because there was you know
01:18all that extra uptake like we saw sort of early figures in April was about I think some bus
01:23companies saw a 35% increase there was another with a 47% increase in passengers and so they
01:30decided to sort of extend that and as I mentioned earlier they are now considering kind of extending
01:35it indefinitely and it's weighed against the fact at the same time that they have been trying
01:39to embrace that they call it a common ticketing system but it's that you know the electronic
01:44ticketing system that a lot of other states have they've been trying to develop that and there
01:50may have been some complications it's a 27.7 million dollar contract and they've spent 11.9 million
01:55already but they've been able to put that one on pause while they look at continuing free public
02:01transport so we should have an answer to that question I think before next year's budget because
02:07obviously the funding would need to be accounted for
