Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Thank you, honourable Speaker. I rise to speak on the amendment and will save my substantive contribution on our motion after we deal with this. This amendment worries me a bit. This amendment lends itself to the opposition walking into this Chamber every day and moving motions such as this and that does not happen.
In saying that, I am going to indicate that we have moved this motion of no confidence in the Premier for a very specific reason. It is because of his betrayal of a commitment to Tasmania’s people, an election commitment to dealing with the harm and scourge of poker machines by introducing a mandatory pre-commitment card. I want to read into the Hansard as part of this a conversation between the Premier and a reporter during the election campaign in relation to the card, and it goes like this:
Reporter – So you’re committed to the $5000 per year/$100 per day limit on these cards?
Premier Jeremy Rockliff – We are committed to that reform. I’ve said that very clearly.
Reporter – So to be absolutely clear, you’re committed to the limits?
Premier – We’re committed. I’ve said we’re committed.
Reporter – To the limits?
Premier – We’re committed.
Reporter – To the limits?
Premier – To the limits, we’re committed.
Yet we get a statement today which – amongst all of the spin around harm minimisation and facial recognition which I will talk a little bit more about later – says that the government defers progress on mandatory precommitment. This was a nation-leading initiative. The former deputy premier and former treasurer, Michael Ferguson, articulated that when he launched it. It was nation-leading and now it seems as part of this statement that we will be looking to other states to do it together. We are going to watch and monitor and outline the progress of such a system in other jurisdictions.
Our motion was very specific and we Greens will continue to speak to that. In saying that, when we step back and ask ourselves, therefore, if we have confidence in the Premier, of course, we have to answer, ‘No’. We have moved a no-confidence motion. On the simple words of the amendment from the Leader of the Opposition, we have to agree with that. We agree with the amendment. We agree with the proposition that we have no confidence in the Premier.
The member for Clark who just resumed her seat mounts a persuasive argument in my mind about this being now a simple proposition. Each and every member can speak to whatever issues they need to grab onto with regard to their lack of confidence in the Premier. The opposition can talk about the Spirits and other things all they want. From our perspective, we are going to talk about the mandatory pre-commitment card because that is what has triggered this this no-confidence motion.
We have brought this no-confidence motion into this House because of the developments of today and when you compare them to the history of this issue, to the statements of the Premier, to even the statements of his colleague ministers, you realise that this has been a litany of deception and a disgusting betrayal of Tasmanians, what they stand for and what they want. Tasmanians want this kind of commitment and it is clear that it should and needs to be delivered, but under this government, as of today, it is not going to be delivered.
While every member can pick and choose what issue they need to justify voting no confidence in the Premier, we will certainly be talking to the mandatory pre-commitment card issue and will anchor our arguments to that. In saying that, we do support the amendment and will back it accordingly.
