Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Good advice, President, thank you. My question is for the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Senator McCarthy. In April 2025, the Albanese government announced an increase to the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme's assistance rates over two years. For Tasmania the cost of living is the cost of shipping. What we buy comes in on ships; what we sell we ship out. But, when I chaired the 2024 select committee into the operation of the scheme, I heard that the thing Tasmanians want most urgently and need most critically is streamlining. The TFES is slow to administer, slow to deliver and overly complicated to apply—and, for many producers, the juice ain't worth the squeeze. Tasmanian industry spent the whole federal election listening for some commitment from Labor and the coalition to modernise this bureaucratic and outdated scheme. I didn't hear one. Did I miss it?