Question – School Bus Services – Consideration of Extending Kingston Route

November 12, 2025

School Bus Services – Consideration of Extending Kingston Route

Ms WEBB question to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCTURE and TRANSPORT, Mr VINCENT

Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Regarding school bus service within Spring Farm and Whitewater Park estates, which are in Kingston and part of my electorate, can you confirm that at the beginning of the 2025 school year the Department of State Growth engaged Wisby’s Buses Pty Ltd to service Spring Farm and Whitewater Park estates for students at Kingston High and Kingston Primary schools, but unfortunately failed at the time to explore extending this new service to accommodate other non-government schools in the area, including St Aloysius Catholic College, which is attended by many children living in those suburbs?

Further, can you confirm that you’ve received correspondence from the college and parents, including supportive material from Wisby’s Buses advising the company would be happy to implement a contract change as the required route change would add only an extra 7.6 kilometres each day, an additional four minutes to the current schedule, and could also accommodate children attending the Tarremah Steiner School nearby?

Given the demonstrated demand, the benefits, and the minimal impact of the current service, are you considering acting upon the request for a minor adjustment to the existing Kingston school bus route, and will you undertake to have done so in time for the commencement of the 2026 school year?

ANSWER

Mr President, I will seek some advice on that.

I will read some and then I have some other points that I’d like to add as well.

The Department of State Growth were not provided the opportunity to engage early on the Spring Farm and Whitewater Estate developments and were not able to provide advice on the public transport provision arrangements. The design of their estates makes it difficult to be serviced by public transport. State Growth is planning on installing new bus stops on the Channel Highway near Spring Farm Road to align with the planned shopping centre development, which will increase public transport access to estate residents and to existing Channel Highway bus routes.

However, service adjustments to divert existing Channel bus routes through the estates are not possible because of the significant disruption this would have on existing pasture and the highly integrated public transport network. The estates are currently serviced by two school bus routes to the Kingston Primary School, Kingston High School and Hobart College, as well as nearby government schools. The department is currently progressing the Greater Hobart Bus Network Review, which includes consideration of how best to provide Spring Farm and Whitewater Park communities with access to public bus services.

I will add, that I think myself, and it might have been the member for Huon, when we had a chat earlier on the week, that we received substantial and well written letters from some of the association people down there pointing out some of these things, which have only just arrived to the office quite recently and we’re still working our way through them.

School Bus Services – Consideration of Extending Kingston Route

Ms WEBB question to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCTURE and TRANSPORT, Mr VINCENT

Wednesday, 12 November 2025

To follow up on the previous question, I appreciate that information provided by the minister, but I wasn’t asking about public transport to those suburbs – although it’s good to hear that that’s going to be looked at under the review. The specific question was about the school buses, which you did reference in your answer, that currently provide transport to school. It’s a private bus company that transports children to school, going to Kingston Primary and Kingston High, and I believe what there’s one for Hobart College.

The question relates to adjustments that have been requested to those Wisby Bus service routes to also be able to drop kids to school at St Aloysius and Tarremah Steiner School, which has been requested and apparently would comply with the State Growth school bus service eligibility guidelines. The parents, the schools and the bus company are all looking to make the change, but that hasn’t necessarily been progressed by State Growth. I’m asking will you look at that and give it consideration ahead of the 2026 school year, to see if that can be accommodated with those existing school bus contracts?

ANSWER

Mr President, I thank the member for clarification on that. I probably should have expanded on that last little bit some more, about the newness of the information received and I am happy to progress that through. I can’t say that I’m fully across how that works, other than that State Growth handle those contracts as well and we will progress that. I am happy to come back to you, it won’t be immediately because we’ve got to find out a little bit more information, which is what I hinted at, that we are working through it at the moment. I should note, the letters myself and the member for Huon received were very well written, in a lot of detail. It really was, it was very well done. We don’t always see the level of detail it had in it. We have taken it very seriously.