Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Ferry expensive journey

Kangaroo Island is in the thrall of an overpriced monopoly ferry service to and from the South Australian mainland.

by Eric Ellis

IT WAS was Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates' business partner, who conveniently wouldn't recognise a monopoly "unless someone pointed one out to me."

Well, even Ballmer might spot one of Australia's tastiest monopolies, SeaLink's ferry to the fast-rising tourist hotspot Kangaroo Island.

Or he might blanch, as tourists do, at forking out $437 for a family of five's return passage. Locals half-joke that they need a Microsoft-style fortune to get to the South Australian mainland, just 45 minutes away.

"It's one of the most expensive boat rides in the world," grouses Michael Pengilly, the island's former mayor and now its Liberal member in the SA parliament. "Something has to be done, it has the potential of strangling us," he says, as the island transforms itself into a pristine international magnet, scaling up its current 150,000 annual visitors to an anticipated 500,000 by 2012 - another bonanza for SeaLink, which takes 10% to 25% commissions from local hoteliers.

A lot of islanders agree. Many are drought-stricken farmers in reluctant transition to boutique hoteliers. They grumble that SeaLink has them "by the short and curlies", and that though KI charms tourists, they baulk at a second visit at that price.

It is certainly Australia's most expensive major ferry route. A return journey on a similar vessel the same distance across Queensland's Moreton Bay to Stradbroke Island would cost that same family and their car just $112. The 22-hour return between Melbourne and Devonport, Tasmania, is about double the price for KI, but is 15 times longer.

KI ferry-goers pay $16.80 for every seabound kilometre, compared with $1.15 across Bass Strait and $4.60 for the Straddie ride. A handful of operators have tried to compete but they have been muscled off by SeaLink.

(Still, SeaLink is a relative bargain compared with that other great overpriced ferry monopoly, the $75 return for the 10 minutes between Fraser Island and the Noosa-side beaches.)

Pengilly says KI's problem is that it's safe Liberal territory in a Labor state. "We don't have the vulnerable seats that Tassie does so we don't get the ... I wanna say bribes but let's say ... handouts."

SeaLink boss Jeff Ellison makes no apology for the price-gouging. He says that unlike the Bass Strait service, seen as part of the national road network, SeaLink gets no government subsidy, and is over-slugged by Adelaide for using piers. "I'd like nothing more to lower the prices but we can't afford to."

The island is divided about who to blame. Pengilly points the finger at SA state transport minister Pat Conlon who, he says, could "halve the price with the stroke of a pen" and release subsidies, while other islanders say the ferry company "sets the prices it wants because it can". For his part, Conlon's press secretary Matt Clemow said he "didn't know it was so expensive down there".