[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Student Bus Fare Inequity Problems_T Morris MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

SCHOOL BUS FARES STILL A MESS

Some Families Hit Very Hard

Tim Morris MP
Greens Shadow Infrastructure Spokesperson

Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens today said that the Government still had a
considerable amount of work to do to ensure that the new fare
arrangements for school bus transport are equitable for Tasmanian
families, whilst at the same time ensuring that situations that exist at
Summerleas Road, Kingston, where children are crossing the Huon Highway
in peak hour because the bus on the other side of the road, costs 30c
rather than $1.20 on their side.

Greens Shadow Infrastructure spokesperson Tim Morris MP said that the
Bartlett Government must ensure that the cost of sending children to
school is affordable as well as reasonably equitable across the state.

"The new fare system seems to still leave the question of equity
substantially unanswered, given that some families that formerly had
free access to school busses have now to pay $9.60 per student per week,
seems to be a very harsh impost on families with more than one child,"
Mr Morris said.

"It will cost nearly $400.00 per child for those families who find
themselves on the highest fares and this is a significant and sudden
impost without adequate warning for some families who were formerly
accessing free services."

"A far more equitable system that would have allowed families time to
adjust to the new system would have been to apply the stepped in fare
system to all changed student fares," Mr Morris said.



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