Ms ROSOL question to PREMIER, Mr ROCKLIFF
You justify your fixation on progressing the stadium at any cost by insisting the stadium will benefit the future of Tasmanians. Yet right now, children’s futures are being jeopardised by a lack of funding for services they desperately need to keep them safe and put them on a positive pathway. Child Safety Services is underfunded. Youth Justice is underfunded. Children and young people are missing out on vital support that would be transformative for their futures. When will you prioritise the needs of children and invest in Children and Youth services in ways that will truly benefit their futures?
Mr Jaensch – An additional $30 million in the budget, $30 million year on year, additional funding in the budget.
The SPEAKER – Thank you, Mr Jaensch, I have no tolerance today. You are formally warned. We have two more questions to go. Let us get through it.
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, I thank Ms Rosol for the question. I agree with her sentiment around supporting those essential services, particularly supporting children and young people, and for very good reason. We have had a considerable amount of work with the commission of inquiry, which we are committed to, the recommendations and significant investment. I would argue against the premise of your question. We are investing more than ever before when it comes to our children and young people, more than ever before on schools, both infrastructure and resources in schools, and in child protection because it is much needed. I concur. Some of those investments include supporting our children with our lunch program in schools, extending that to another 15 schools, to ensure that our young people are in a learning environment where they feel safe and included. When they feel safe and included at school, they learn. When they do not feel safe and included, that is a barrier to learning.
More than ever before, we have invested in supporting our students with disability. We have nation-leading supports for our students with disability where the need goes directly to the student. We previously had that rather crude approach to the IQ of 50 to 70 for our students and the funding just went straight to that area. Now, it is whatever the student needs to learn. Whatever the barrier is, we will support the reduction of that barrier to learning.
No doubt we have more work to do there. We also need to continue to grow our economy, which is why I am so supportive of key infrastructure development in Tasmania, enabling infrastructure. I see the stadia infrastructure as enabling infrastructure to grow our economy. I thought the Tasmanian Planning Commission issues paper was deficient in terms of extolling the true benefits of the economy, because when you have a growing economy and you support Tasmanians in work, you get to fund the essential services.
It reminds me of some information I saw this morning released by Mr Ferguson about the impact of the Greens policies federally. If we do not have a mining industry or a forest industry –
The SPEAKER – The Premier’s time for answering the question has expired. I am not seeing a seeking of a supplementary. Therefore, Mr Garland, with the final question of today, if it gets answered straight away.
