Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Chair, I rise to give my reply to the Estimates process. Upfront, I want to acknowledge the process and thank everyone involved in it ‑ parliamentary staff who moved heaven on earth to make it happen ‑ not least with GBEs following ‑ the services staff as well. I want to acknowledge our team, who work tirelessly to assist us with the questions. Also, I want to acknowledge the chairs of the committees. Honourable Chair, you did a great job, as did Mr Fairs. I thought you were fair and even‑handed.
This Budget is deeply concerning, and corrective action is needed. During the election, we Greens showed that you can deliver that kind of corrective action. We showed that there was a billion dollars worth of savings that could be made in the Budget. We showed that there was $900 million worth of revenue that could be earned by making big corporations pay their fair share, and when we included additional expenditure, we showed that the Budget could be $1.4 billion dollars better off overall.
It is possible, and it has been really made clear by people, including Dr Saul Eslake, that the state of the Budget is purely down to decisions ‑ policy decisions of this government. It’s not down to COI, it’s not down to COVID, it’s down to policy decisions.
Saul Eslake said:
Drawing on publicly available information, the Review finds that the deterioration in the financial position of Tasmania’s ‘general government sector’ – that is, state government departments and agencies funded primarily by taxation revenue or grants from the Federal Government – over the past decade is entirely attributable to ‘policy decisions’ by government (to increase ‘operating’ or recurrent expenses, and spending on infrastructure projects, and to a lesser extent to reduce taxes).
We’ve seen this government engage in pork barrelling, refusing to raise revenue and to set infrastructure budgets that are exorbitant ‑ synonymously characterised, obviously, by the stadium.
The Pre-Election Financial Outlook (PEFO) showed in its key findings that the Budget has a structural problem, and that despite the fact that the government talking about rivers of gold coming, the Treasury, unfettered by the hand of the Treasurer in the PEFO during caretaker period, said that:
Economic growth correlates weakly with general government sector revenue growth in Tasmania. Accordingly, this structural problem will not be resolved through future economic growth.
Explicit policy choices are required. We need those policy choices ‑ we need them desperately, because with our credit rating now being downgraded, the state of the Budget is going to get even worse. Debt is going to get more expensive, and it will come at a cost to our services.
The first thing this government should do is drop the Macquarie Point stadium, because that is unnecessary debt for a third AFL stadium that will get ever more expensive. Instead, it’s focused on cuts. It stood up the efficiency and productivity unit that’s looking across departments for places to find savings ‑ 2800 public servants over the coming years. In the Budget consultation papers, it’s writing to community service organisations asking them for suggestions as to what they can cut. These are people who are providing critical services to our community, and they are being asked to find the cuts to their own services. It’s insulting. If you turn on the television or read the newspaper in any one week, you hear story after story of people doing it hard. Whether it’s the Chigwell community garden that has to close down, the Hobart City Mission that can’t meet the needs of its community, or things like jacking up TAFE fees for really important courses, you can see that there are cuts and hikes going on everywhere.
Of course, the stadium sits central to a lot of this ‑ $1.8 billion over the next 10 years, a contaminated site, so it’s high‑risk. A high risk of delay; delays equal cost overruns. There are high‑impact effects – and I will talk about some of this later – the Cenotaph, the heritage precinct of Hobart, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. There are significant issues.
It was good to have the opportunity to directly put to the Treasurer, in an Estimates‑type process, questions about some of these things. Questions about debt and servicing debt, $10.4 billion by the end of the forward Estimates ‑ that’s almost double, and that doesn’t include the debt being carried by government businesses and non‑financial government corporations.
This Budget is a matter of choices. The government is actively choosing to prioritise things like the stadium, and things like not raising revenue by making corporations pay their fair share. They’re making us, the community, pay as a result, and it’s baking in an absolute mirage to this so-called interim Budget. The notion of a surplus, albeit a modest surplus of $5 million, at the end of the forward Estimates is an absolute mirage. We know that the forward Estimates for many critical services are blanked out, and they are things that will need to be funded. Things like 26Ten, which I raised during the committee process with minister Jo Palmer, and the school lunch program. These are things that the government is working on strategies to deliver, yet hasn’t put in funding beyond 2026, because that’s when the current funding ends. We know that they’re going to need to do these things. We hope they’re going to give funding to these things. If they’re not, it’s an even bigger indictment on this government.
The point I want to make is that the notion of the surplus is an absolute mirage. This Budget has been reverse‑engineered to find a surplus in 2028‑29 and work it backwards from there. I mentioned the public service reductions – we know that the budget coming is going to be way worse than this one itself, and 2800 public service jobs are in the crosshairs of this government.
When it comes to the stadium, it was great to talk to the Treasurer about implications of the stadium. It’s had four cost blowouts. It seems there is no upper limit to the price tag the government is willing to spend on this stadium. The commitment of ‘$375 million and not one red cent more’ by the Premier that was clearly announced day one of election 2024 was clearly all about neutralising the issue during the 2024 election. The Premier was completely undermined by his Treasurer, who completely contradicted him. The Premier has often said that borrowings are not capital, and when he said that capital was $375 million and not one red cent more, the Treasurer, Mr Abetz, said, ‘Borrowings are clearly going to be part of the capital input’.
Unfortunately for the Premier, the charade of ‘not one red cent more than $375 million’ has been blown out of the water by his own Treasurer.
The Treasurer did not get advice from Treasury about scenario mapping about how much this will cost if it blows out by a certain amount. He has no modelling or evidence around the rivers of gold. He talks about payroll tax; he talks about land tax. However, in listening to the Treasurer and the Premier you would think this stadium is going to deliver some incredible bonanza. Don’t worry about the experts who say that’s not going to happen. Don’t worry about the fact that the Planning Commission and Martin Wallace the other day said that that’s not going to happen, that other experts presented to the upper House said that all the evidence looking at stadia around the world shows that that river of gold, that bonanza will not come. Put that aside. If you ask the Treasurer about what he bases his claims on, has he got modelling from Treasury, does he have evidence to substantiate that? It is clearly ‘no’.
Servicing the debt: the Macquarie Point Development Corporation is going to borrow $490 million. The government itself is going to borrow $375 million simply to service the Macquarie Point debt of $490 million – this is pre-credit rating downgrade – which is going to cost up to $32 million a year. It’s an incredible amount of money and, as Martin Wallace said the other day, it is compounding and it will cost more and more every year because we are going to be borrowing money to pay the interest on borrowed money. This is ludicrous and, as Martin Wallace said, an untenable situation.
Of course, the GBE debt is unsustainable as well. I will talk a little bit about Homes Tasmania later, but it is really clear that this government is effectively using the GBE sector – public, non‑financial corporations – as vehicles to carry debt so it doesn’t sit on the general government sector budget.
In the Treasury portfolio, it was good to ask questions about the mandatory precommitment card. The Finance portfolio has responsibility for that and we again pushed the government on the release of reports, the Deloitte’s report, and other evidence around their position and, of course, to push them on leading the nation. Don’t follow the nation when it comes to this because this is something that we can do. We know the damage that poker machines do in our communities. Millions and millions of dollars – $17 million stripped out of our communities every single year. This is the evidence. The mandatory precommitment card was the evidence and was the recommendation of the Liquor and Gaming Commission.
The community support levy which is drawn from poker machine revenues is supposed to be handed out to community support organisations to help people with problem gambling. It’s a levy of $7.5 million. There’s a balance of $2.4 million being held at the moment. Why is it that the government is withholding money that it is collecting from gambling profits to assist with problem gambling? It should be divvied out. It’s ridiculous to think that that’s not the case.
TasInsure was an interesting conversation to participate in. Despite the fact that Tasmania tops the list when it comes to the National Climate Risk Assessment, this government seems to think that TasInsure is a good idea because it means that Tasmanians won’t have to cover for the exorbitant cost of insuring and paying out on claims from bushfires, cyclones and other natural disasters and floods in northern Australia and on the mainland, but, of course, the government has absolutely no modelling to back this up.
I remember sitting in this place once over the last couple of years and the Premier looking across at Mr Winter when he was opposition leader and levelling the accusation at him, ‘Mr Winter, you’re all shopfront and no shelves,’ meaning you have no substance and you’re all façade. If there was ever a policy position that is all shopfront and no shelves, it’s this when it comes to TasInsure.
The Tasmanian Audit Office came for half an hour and to the Treasurer’s credit – I want to pay credit where credit’s due – he effectively stepped back from that conversation and allowed questions to be asked directly of the Audit Office and for them to be answered. That was very welcome. The Auditor-General was really clear on TT‑Line when he said, ‘I haven’t been presented with anything that would change my opinion at this point of time’. Meaning, that, in his mind, TT‑Line is still insolvent. GBE debt, it was a concern in the PEFO and TT‑Line is clearly a concern front of mind when it comes to the Audit Office, but there are concerns being raised about others. Of course, we asked questions about the Wilkinsons Point land sale and the fact that the Audit Office couldn’t get access to Cabinet documents that would have helped their analysis.
When it came to the stadium and Macquarie Point urban renewal, with the Minister for Macquarie Point Urban Renewal, it was, again, an exercise in uncovering the ludicrous house of cards upon which the Macquarie Point Stadium is to be built. We have, on one hand, the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s expert evidence saying don’t build it, the stadium should not proceed and, on the other hand, we have a really flimsy – basically a PR pamphlet from the government that reruns all the same arguments that have been run and lost and puts up a few comments from punters on the street or vested interests.
Of course, when it comes to urban renewal, the Tasmanian Planning Commission is utterly clear that putting the stadium in that spot is not going to leave enough room to activate the site. I listened to the Tasmanian Planning Commission before the Legislative Council committee the other day. It was fantastic to see Shelley Penn AM, the architect who is on that panel, unpack exactly why it is the case that there is too little room and not enough access. It is going to be unsafe for people to be walking around there. It’s not going to be a commercial venture.
It is Mac Point Urban Renewal in name only when it comes to this portfolio. But when it comes to the $490.7 million that the Mac Point Development Corporation is going to borrow, the state government is clearly going to guarantee all those borrowings. When the Treasurer accepted the $375 million that the government will be borrowing is added to the $490.7 million, the government will be borrowing at least $865.7 million to build the Macquarie Point Stadium and, as mentioned, simply servicing the Mac Point debt ‑ the $490 million-worth of debt ‑ is going to cost $32 million from the general government sector. This is the same sector where we pay nurses and teachers, and give out money to community service organisations.
When it comes comes to private sector investment, the minister said they have not taken that off the table. The correct terminology might be ‘deferred it,’ but clearly there’s been a lack of interest there. When it comes to paying down capital borrowings, the minister points to the commercial returns that will be generated from site redevelopment. However, if you do listen to the experts, like the Tasmanian Planning Commission, the returns are going to be pretty marginal there because urban renewal is going to be very difficult to deliver.
As for the NRE land that’s to be transferred to the Macquarie Point Development Corporation for housing, which is a requirement of the $240 million being given by the federal government, is yet to be transferred. Moreover, in the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s evidence, they basically said that there couldn’t be a worse place for housing development. It is isolated from the city, right next to an industrial site – the working port – and full of hazards for residents. It’s the worst possible place to put a housing development.
We asked some questions about the Aboriginal culturally informed zone. While the previous master plan for Mac Point had truth and reconciliation front and centre, the Aboriginal culturally informed zone is a real titbit that’s left on the outside of the stadium that Prof Greg Lehman, has described as, and I quote, ‘… gestures amount to what I would characterise as a typical example of what is commonly called “Black-cladding”‘. [OK]
Under questioning we found out that the Aboriginal culturally informed zone is not funded as part of the $1.13 billion of the stadium expenditure. It will be developed in the first instance, I imagine, as simple pavement. Then, if this thing is ever built, additional money will have to be spent over time to deliver that zone, if at all.
When it comes to the Sport portfolio with minister Duigan, it was really clear that the government has not yet considered what’s going to happen to the debt that’s associated with the stadium when it comes to transferring it from Macquarie Point Development Corporation to Stadiums Tasmania.
The question was, when you transfer the stadium from one entity to another, does the debt go with it? That’s the normal thing that would happen with debt. However, as minister Duigan said, this is not a scenario that has been contemplated. We found out during questioning that sports betting, that advertising for gambling inside the stadium, that there is no current policy position to preclude that kind of betting, and that 90 per cent of the advertising inside the stadium actually comes with the tenants. If you get the AFL and their relationship with sports betting companies, you get their baggage as well. You get their gambling advertising and there’s no capacity to preclude gambling advertising in the stadium and it seems there’s no intent to do so.
I was shocked to hear the response from the minister, Mr Duigan, under questioning from Mr Winter in relation to the North Launceston Football Club and that funding. I find that outcome really disrespectful and indecent as a response. It’s great to see our member for Bass, Ms Rosol, put on the record today that there should be an apology, there should be a demonstration of respect and decency, and that money should be honoured.
Chair, when it comes to the environment, it’s obviously critical to our brand and our economy. We pride ourselves on being clean and green. Of course, the State of the Environment Report was an absolute wakeup call for Tasmania and Tasmanians, but it seems not for this government. Of 29 indicators, 55 per cent – more than half of them – were deteriorating, 21 per cent were stable, 7 per cent are improving, and 17 per cent are unknown. It’s a shocking indictment on a decade of Liberal policy and funding priorities. The report made several recommendations, including:
- develop a long‑term vision and strategy for Tasmania’s environment
- explore opportunities to collaborate with the Aboriginal community
- establish more marine protected areas
- remove protections for wild fallow deer from regulatory frameworks and invest in and expand the terrestrial reserve estate.
When you look at the Budget, there are no dollars in it to implement the State of the Environment Report recommendations. There’s nothing explicit there. We know from the government’s response to the State of the Environment Report that few have been picked up and many have, or some have been, completely rejected. Many others have been acknowledged in part and they will be delivered in part. It’s simply not good enough.
If we are going to maintain that clean, green brand, we need to be funding elements and we need to be funding the protection of our environment and indeed the restoration of our environment. The EPA was in the room when it came to the environment portfolio and Dr Woodruff extensively questioned them about florfenicol and antibiotic use in salmon farms and found a shocking figure: 700 kilograms of florfenicol had been released into the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in less than two weeks. Absolutely shocking. Of course, there are many concerns when it comes to the EPA needing new teeth, needing new laws to be able to implement and to regulate.
One of the most shocking revelations under questioning of the EPA was its intervention, its appeal in a legal case to try to block Mine Watch Meander Valley, which has been joined to a legal case by TASCAT. EPA is using public money to appeal to the Federal Court to try to block that community group from that appeal. It’s a shocking indictment. The motivation for this, according to the EPA, is all about law and in regard to appropriate processes. For some reason the EPA sees it appropriate to intervene to try to block a community group from participating and exercising its legal rights to challenge a mine in its local area. It confirmed that there’s no upper limit on what’s being spent.
Threatened species protection was a feature of the State of the Environment Report. We’re seeing precious little of it when it comes to the swift parrot and when it comes to the loss of potential breeding and foraging habitat, the government’s own recovery plan for the swift parrot shows that loss of potential breeding habitat in Tasmania via clearance for conversion to agriculture, native forest logging and intensive native forests silviculture, continues to reduce the amount of available swift parrot nesting and foraging habitat and therefore remains a significant threat to the continued persistence of the species.
We had no answer from the minister when pushed on increasing habitat protection for the swift parrot. We had no answer from the minister when it came to logging at Lonnavale and the declaration of a swift parrot important breeding habitat over that area. The only thing the government can point to when it comes to the protection of habitat for species is private land conservation and, even in that regard, it’s failed to meet its targets.
It was welcome to have a conversation with the EPA about the Lake Rosebery oil spill because that was a response that appeared to be very well managed. We asked questions about legacy site auditing, about how many of these legacy industrial sites are out there in the landscape and what they are doing to understand it and address it. It does seem that there are steps being taken, which is really welcome.
It was refreshing to have a conversation with minister Vincent in the chair when it came to housing. I find his answers real and really honest, despite the fact that he has some significant challenges, not least in the Housing portfolio. The Homes Tasmania review identified a whole range of different issues and implementation needs to be delivered, but it seems that next year’s budget is where most of those outcomes are going to be found.
Homes Tasmania debt is now shocking. It’s $500 million now and trending towards a billion dollars at the end of the forward Estimates. It’s going to cost us $25 million now to service this debt. It’ll cost us $50 million at the end of the forward Estimates. Meanwhile, the priority wait list is 5336 people, which is over 8180 people. There were questions asked, I acknowledge not by myself, this is a question I’ve thought about a lot, about how many actual people sit behind those 5336 applications and it is at least 8000 people based on the numbers that were provided.
It’s really clear that short stay accommodation needs to be reined in. Treasury has estimates as to what could be generated through the short stay levy. It’s welcome to see a commitment for that to be implemented next year, but it means that we’ve done ourselves out of $22 million in the two years that we’ve now been delayed.
What was very welcome in the conversation with Homes Tasmania was the acknowledgement that the private rental market is broken. The CEO of Homes Tasmania made it really clear and I quote, when we’re talking about private rental issues – ‘those are important things for all governments to think about, but private rental in Australia is broken’. I concur with that. We need rent control, we need no cause evictions, we need minimum standards and at the federal level it’s clear that we need to deal with capital gains tax and negative gearing.
When it came to the Energy portfolio and minister Duigan, it is shocking. It was good to put to him and push him on the fact that his federal parliament colleagues have abandoned the target of net zero emissions. It’s an indictment on the federal Liberals.
When it comes to Marinus and the North West Transmission Developments, it’s a key issue. The scale of the development and the scale of the investment is absolutely astounding. $191 million in the budget this year for TasNetworks and that’s on top of $103 million in the last year’s budget. What was shocking for many of us in here, was the willingness of the government to make a decision to invest in Marinus Link during the caretaker period despite the red flags in the whole-of-state business case.
It has raised red flags with the structure of the NEM with the increase in transmission costs and the government. Those increased transmission costs are well understood, and acknowledged by government, but they say that they’re going to be mitigated by wholesale power prices being reduced and by Hydro Tasmania’s super profits. However, when it came to the push and shove, and when we read some quotes into Hansard in Estimates, the Deloitte’s report actually drafted to inform the whole‑of‑state business case, shows that there would be a 59 per cent increase in wholesale energy prices with a Marinus Link scenario versus a no Marinus Link scenario. Again, another house of cards. The whole argument for Marinus and the North West Transmission is built on these arguments where experts give advice, departmental officials give another advice and government go with that.
Meanwhile, Hydro profits are reducing, there’s no dividend this year. Despite the fact that there’s $470 million of super profits forecast into the future, absolutely no modelling was produced. No river flow modelling either. It’s all based on river flow inflows into the dams and despite a pre‑Basslink river flow assessment way back in 2001, it appears that Hydro has not done the work on assessing the inflows into its dams. We did have the opportunity to raise the issue about biofuels and the fact that all of these different biofuel proposals that are popping up across the landscape come at significant risk. The budget itself identifies some of these risks, and as far as we’re concerned, we will identify one of the risks and that is native forest logging.
I only have a minute left. Through the Veterans’ portfolio we had the opportunity to push the minister again on the Cenotaph. It’s going to be 100 years old in a couple of weeks’ time and it’s going to be significantly impacted by the stadium. I also pushed the minister on recognising Aboriginal veterans’ and veterans from the Black War here in Tasmania.
When it comes to minister Ogilvie, in the Arts and Heritage space, again, the heritage value of the Cenotaph was raised and the commitment of the RSL to it. I raised the issue of TMAG’s leaking roof, and the fact that when I went to a presentation there a couple of weeks ago, there was a bucket on the floor in the middle of the central gallery. Also, the TMAG holds Aboriginal remains. They’ve managed to repatriate one third of the remains, but the balance is yet to be repatriated, and something needs to happen in that space.
We know the May 2027 Budget is going to cut deeper. We know it’s going to cost Tasmanians dearly.
