The Liberals want to sell off public land to try to fund a billion-dollar stadium in Hobart. This is completely the wrong priority for Tasmania.
That’s why today the Greens are announcing that we will move to require parliamentary approval for the sale of our public land.
Already the Liberals have been generating a modest income from subtle public land sales, and they recently announced they want to ramp up sales to try and plug the stadium-sized hole in the budget.
Allowing parliament to disallow the sale of public land would provide an important check and balance on any future government that wants to try to put a band-aid on the budget by selling off Tasmania. This measure would bring the State Government more into line with local councils, who have strict requirements for land sales.
We know the Liberals will have no hesitation in opposing this policy – they’ve made their intentions clear. But where does Labor stand?
Labor have backed the Liberals on so many big issues, and so far we’ve heard crickets from them on leasing land in our National Parks for a peppercorn rent. It’s good to see them standing alongside the Greens in opposing the privatisation of public assets. What about public land, land which is for all Tasmanians?
Last week Dean Winter said “we can’t grow our state by selling it off”.* We couldn’t agree more. Does that mean Mr Winter opposes the Liberals’ plan for selling public land too?
Parliamentary oversight for public land, land which belongs to everyone, is a basic and common sense measure. If Labor won’t support this policy it will be a clear admission they want to follow the Liberals down the public sell-offs road.
