Mr BAYLEY – Honourable Speaker, I will be quick because I am conscious that at least Mr Jenner and my colleague Ms Burnet have a contribution to make. I will confirm again for the record, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this motion forward and confirm that the Greens will support it. The Greens do not support privatisation of our GBEs, our state‑owned companies, or indeed, let me just say, the Land Titles Office, which is neither of those things and yet has been flagged by this government for consideration for sale as well.
The Land Titles Office is not a GBE and not a state‑owned company. It is a really important part of the public service that deals with really sensitive information, every single piece of property information that this state holds. Every person who owns property in this state is on their database. It just beggars belief. We cannot even conceive of an idea as to why the government would want to reach into the public service and pull out the Land Titles Office and privatise it. It also begs the question: what else has not yet been named up by this government in terms of state services that they may seek to reach into and pull out?
We are opposed to privatisation because it does not deliver better value for Tasmania. It leads to higher prices. It leads to poorer services. It can lead to gouging and a whole range of issues. When it comes to this government and this privatisation agenda, it has to be said that the government simply does not have a mandate to do it in the first place. They took a position to the election that was about the government business enterprises. I will take the time to read it into Hansard because it mentions nothing about privatisation. The government took to the election a policy that says:
Requiring government businesses to deliver outcomes consistent with Tasmanian Liberals policy objectives, deliver services to Tasmanians at the lowest sustainable cost while also growing our economy and engaging with businesses and community in a constructive manner.
Nothing in that speaks about flogging those GBEs for sale to prop up the budget. Nothing in there talks about privatising assets so that they can be more efficient or that they can pay down debt. It is a very clear policy. The government simply does not have a mandate for these kinds of reforms. This is a knee‑jerk reaction. It is a knee‑jerk reaction both to the budget crisis and indeed the Spirits fiasco.
We saw the first reaction to the Spirits fiasco was the announcement of the Government Business Governance Reform – Draft Plan. Certainly, we Greens are very supportive of a review of the governance of government businesses. It is clear that government businesses and state‑owned companies are not necessarily, or are not all, or always, operating in the best interests of Tasmania. We absolutely support a review so that we can go through each government business and look at its governance and make sure it is actually operating in the best interests of Tasmania. This draft plan does not necessarily do that. We want an independent review. We think an independent review needs to come in and look at the governance structures and the approach when it comes to government businesses so that we can have an independent take on what needs to happen with the governance with those government businesses.
That is not what we are debating today. Today we are debating pure privatisation. It is not about governance reform. It is about offloading and fire‑saling those government businesses so that they can prop up budget black holes and a massive escalating budget deficit and debt.
The Spirits fiasco was truly remarkable. It just beggars belief. You knock on doors in the community, you talk to people out in the community and they just ask the question: ‘How on earth is it that we can spend almost a billion dollars on a couple of boats and not build a place to park them?’ No one would do that in their own home. No one would go and buy a brand new car knowing that they needed to park it off the street and not build a garage or a carport to put it in. How is it?
This is in part knee‑jerk reaction and distraction from that level of incompetence and in part a reaction to a very dire budget situation. One that, it seems, is going to get even more dire again with the Macquarie Point stadium. Debt is going to be $9.6 billion by 2028. Saul Eslake estimates it is going to be $16 billion by 2035. It is a completely unsustainable budget situation. It is a skyrocketing level of debt. Despite the claims by the Deputy Premier, the Treasurer, that there is a pathway to surplus, it is abundantly clear that there is simply no pathway to surplus. That is a mirage.
We wait with bated breath till late May, when we do see the budget and budget Estimates, because that will be the opportunity for that pathway to be spelled out for the Tasmanian people and for us as the crossbench and opposition members to interrogate the government about it.
Instead, alongside this privatisation agenda, we also have incredibly inefficient, incredibly lazy approaches to cutting spending. It is basically ‘DOGE Lite’ here with Treasurer Barnett’s approach to efficiency dividends, vacancy control, and actually a hiring freeze. It is simply not good enough.
GBEs and state‑owned companies perform a really important role in Tasmania. In saying that, we do not necessarily support all GBEs and state‑owned companies. Forestry Tasmania, for example, has long been a loss‑making, destructive business. In the last decade, it sucked $30 million of direct equity transfer from TasNetworks. It has propped itself up by flogging plantations that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to establish. Tasracing, for example, is a cruel and inhumane entity and industry, and costs us $30 million just to subsidise. We have to put on the record here that we do not necessarily support every single GBE or state‑owned company, and some of them, indeed, need to be closed down or completely redirected.
However, most are really critical. Most are critical in the energy, transport and infrastructure space. Privatisation is simply a measure to cost shift. It is shifting costs from the government onto the public, and inevitably, we will see fares go up, we will see services drop, we will see flexibility be compromised when it comes to the services, and it is going to deliver a really bad outcome for Tasmania.
While the government has commissioned Saul Eslake to do his – I believe I heard the Treasurer call it the ‘divestment report’ in this context – we will read and consider that report really closely. It will be an interesting read to see what Mr Eslake thinks about our state‑owned companies and what should be done with them.
We do not support privatisation because it will deliver poorer outcomes for the state and for Tasmanians, and those are the people that we, in this place, need to keep central in our minds and in our hearts.
To finish, this notion of team Tasmania that the Treasurer talks about. I mean, what is this? What is ‘team Tasmania?’ We are all Tasmanians. We are all looking to do the best for Tasmania. We just have a different set of personal values, a different set of political persuasions. This is just shallow spin that tries to deflect and distract from the key issues.
I will just put that on the record. I will sit down now, because there are only 11 minutes left and I know two other members want to make a contribution. To reiterate, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for putting this motion onto the books. We can do nothing more than support it, because we do not support the privatisation of government businesses, state‑owned companies, or indeed, the Land Titles Office.
