Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I welcome this MPI on business and economic growth because it is a good opportunity to remind the House about perpetual growth economics and the fundamental problems there are with perpetual growth economics.
We live on a finite planet. It is cliche, I know, but you do see ‑ and it is so true – the bumper stickers about there being no jobs on a dead planet. In the middle of a climate and biodiversity crisis, we cannot have business and economic growth without a nod and without proper protections for our climate, our biodiversity and our wild places.
That is no truer than here in lutruwita/Tasmania. As we like to hear from this side of the House, 50 per cent of the state is protected, thankfully, in parks and reserves of some description. It is not fully protected – it is not protected from mining, and some of it not from logging and other issues. None of it is protected from inappropriate tourism development that is approved by dodgy processes.
The environment is fundamental to our economy and we need to protect it. When it comes to business and economic growth, we need to make sure that we are protecting our environment ‑ indeed, not only protecting it, but restoring it. There are so many growth and business opportunities, and so many job opportunities, in the restoration of the degraded landscapes here in this state, be it Hydro impoundment such as Lake Pedder, be it degraded landscapes on agricultural land, be it pine plantations such as the amazing Skyline Tier Restoration Project being undertaken in the far north-east. We need to make sure that everything regarding business and economic growth is framed in the context of sustainability and in the context of looking after this precious place and what it gives to us. It sustains us and we cannot do without it.
I want to focus today, though, on the billion‑dollar stadium of this government. I mean, this is a folly project that was agreed to by the Premier without proper consultation with anyone in the Tasmanian community, without consultation with his own Cabinet, and without consultation with the Treasury.
I want to highlight in the context of this business and economic growth conversation how ridiculous some of the government and the economic modelling is. In the POSS documents, for example, the KPMG cost‑benefit analysis for the stadium makes the assumption that the base case is that no stadium is developed and therefore the site remains vacant and undeveloped. How ridiculous is it that we are skewing the figures on this stadium assessment and the government is completely kidding itself that the alternative to building a stadium is that the place stays a gravel car park? That is absolutely not the case.
This is a major brownfield development site. It had a longstanding and well worked up development plan that was actually celebrated by the Premier and the then minister for state development, Mr Barnett, who is about to take his feet. Let me just read from the June 2022 media release from before when this development plan was jettisoned in exchange for a stadium being imposed there. It says:
The Macquarie Point development provides a significant one-time opportunity for Hobart and Tasmania. The development is estimated to be worth $1 billion and will support almost 10,000 jobs during construction alone.
I am not talking about the stadium there. This is talking about the previously agreed development master plan that was not going to be publicly funded and that would deliver, in the minister’s own words, ‘$1 billion and almost 1000 jobs’. Instead, we are going to spend $1 billion on a stadium that we do not want or need, and it is going to come at a significant cost to the other things that we need.
We should be investing in our public transport system so that we increase productivity ‑ so people are not having to wait for buses and are not unable to get to work because the bus does not turn up. We need to be investing in housing, because housing is a human right. There is economic development and jobs in a government works department that will build houses for Tasmanians who need it. We need to deal with rent control issues and short‑stay accommodation, because it is out of control. We need to invest more in our healthcare system, not only in frontline workers, but in the kind of infrastructure that is ultimately going to help deliver the needs of Tasmanians.
When it comes to education, we cannot have the kind of spin we have been going with. Loopholes in funding agreements that allow for funds to be stripped from classrooms –
Time expired.
