Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, on the substantive motion, thank you to the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this motion on and initiating this inquiry. The Greens will support it. We have an amendment prepared, which I will distribute, to make sure that employees of our GBEs are explicitly considered as part of this.
Let me just start – I will try to be quick because I am conscious that there are probably others who are wanting to speak, and we have 25 minutes left. At the end of the day, Tasmanian people are the shareholders of the GBEs. They must function in the collective interest of Tasmanians and act in our public interest. They simply must do that. The Greens welcomed the 2024 commitment to reform GBEs and state-owned companies. We have publicly called for an independent inquiry. The GBE failures are writ large and are longstanding.
I am not going to go into the Spirits in depth. That has been worked over in this place extensively. It was a monumental stuff-up. The GBEs themselves and their interaction failed and ministerial oversight completely failed. It is costing us dearly. It is costing us money, time, and economic activity. We have historical issues with our GBEs. We have agencies like Forestry Tasmania that have been completely rogue. We have agencies like TasNetworks, who were instructed to make a $30 million equity transfer to Forestry Tasmania in 2016 to prop up native forest logging. We have agencies and entities like Tasracing that continue to operate against the public interest.
There is absolutely a need for reform. The Greens made a submission to the government business reform draft plan in December of last year. We reiterated the need for an independent review. We questioned the reasoning behind some of the reforms. Some of them demonstrated little rationale. There was no evidence that was underpinning some of the proposals that were quite unclear. We did not think it was a good faith process, nor that it would lead to better outcomes for Tasmania.
As an example of this, simply putting a Tasmanian in the chair of a GBE does not necessarily mean that it is going to do a better job or act in the interests of Tasmanians. I have a lot of confidence in Tasmanians, but I think that is a very shallow and very political way to try to address fundamental governance failures, just to say that we need to put a Tasmanian in the Chair.
In relation to the government’s proposals, we specifically recommended that we do not support the proposed internal review of the GBEs. We want the review to be undertaken as part of a broader review by independent, widely respected experts. We do not support any move to merge or restructure GBEs. We believe the review of GBEs should extend to reviewing public non‑financial corporations’ statutory authorities. We did not support the introduction of powers that would allow ministers to appoint a ministerial representative on the board.
We have concerns about the undefined appropriate personal protections. We want GBEs to be accountable for their actions, whilst ensuring ministers do not unduly co-opt GBEs for political purposes. With regard to the proposed gateway reviews for projects over $200 million, we believe that the Public Works Committee could have a clear role in that process. We put some really clear specific things on the table for the government to consider, including the fact that, and I quote, ‘We do not support the privatisation or divestment of GBEs.’
This brings me to the motion. It is important at this point to step back and talk about the budget, an absolute budget crisis. The deficit has gone up by $500 million to $1.3 billion this financial year. Net debt is going to be up to $9.6 billion by 2028. It is going to cost $500 million to service every single year. Saul Eslake has predicted that that will reach, $16 billion in 2035. which will cost us $750 million each year to service.
Action is clearly needed in terms of budget repair and budget restructuring. Selling state‑owned assets is one of the most dramatic actions that can be taken. It is extreme, neoliberal, and it is highly problematic. It is not something that the Greens will support.
It ultimately shifts costs from the government onto consumers. If it is Metro, we can expect higher bus fares. If it is MAIB, we can expect higher rego fees. If it is Aurora, the actual power entity that sends out the bills and charges us for our power companies, we can expect higher costs.
Then there are these strange anomalies in this proposal that are not even GBEs or state‑owned companies at all, things like the Land Titles Office. How on earth did that get put on the table in the context of consideration of government businesses and state‑owned companies? It is not a government business; it is not a state-owned company. It is a very important service provider that sits within government department that actually manages incredibly sensitive information.
Only Hydro is off limits. Presumably, that is for cultural reasons and not economic ones. We understand, yes, of course it delivers a good dividend to the Tasmanian government. But, I guess apart from cultural reasons, why would it not be in the mix? If it is going to deliver a better dividend, would it not therefore deliver a better price ultimately and a bigger return to the Tasmanian government in the context of this? I am not arguing for it, I am just saying in the context of this, it is clearly a cultural issue as opposed to an economic issue.
Unions Tasmania have cleared their perspective when it comes to GBEs, and they made a submission to the GBE draft plan. I will quote a few bits of it into Hansard:
Unions, in particular the Community and Public Sector Union have been sounding the alarm on privatisation by stealth within the Tasmanian State Service for several years. Prior to 2024, the government has slowly outsourced a range of public sector work in anywhere from family violence, counselling, child safety, security to Parks and Wildlife.
They are already putting on the record, their concern for workers in relation to privatisation. The largest recent change was moving TasTAFE from the State Service to a not-for-profit GBE. They go on:
Privatisation does not work. The community knows that privatisation is a failed ideology and a failed policy. Australia’s history is littered with examples of failed privatisations at a federal and a state level.
Tasmania had a disastrous experience with privatised rail in the 1990s. The 2023 closure of St Helens Private Hospital left a huge gap in inpatient mental health treatment services for Tasmanians and saw the closure of the state’s only dedicated mother and baby unit.
The unions are well and truly on the record about their concerns about this divestment proposition. That is why we have prepared an amendment and planning to make sure that workers are actively considered as part of this process.
Deputy Speaker, I move –
Amendment to paragraph 2(a)(i):
After the words:
‘and the potential impacts’
Insert:
‘including on employees’
Obviously, the effect of this amendment is simply to make sure that some of those people most impacted by these decisions or, potentially, most impacted by these decisions, are actually actively considered as part of this inquiry.
I will leave it there and I will come back and finish my substantive contribution because I would hope that we will be able to get through this really quickly.
Mr WINTER (Franklin – Leader of the Opposition) – Deputy Speaker, on the amendment, I do not think the motion drafted precludes the consideration of these issues, but it does make it more specific and so I do not have an issue with the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the House for their support for that amendment and I know workers will support you well.
The government has not made the case for this reform. That is really clear. Over and above anything, they did not take it to the election. They have no mandate for this. Not mentioned in the 2024 draft plan when it comes to GBEs and not mentioned in their election commitments.
There were several commitments that went close to this. There were commitments that covered off on this, but they did not specifically say and put this on the table.
I will read into Hansard exactly what the policy commitment was:
Requiring government businesses to deliver outcomes consistent with Tasmanian Liberal 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.
I mean, that is entirely supportable, and yet, that is not what is now on the table. What is now on the table is completely not supportable. It is a fire sale to plug holes in the budget to pay for stadiums, to pay for pork barrelling and other problems. Simply put, the government does not have a mandate for this. It is not transparent on the work that it is doing and it simply should not be supported.
We support the motion to establish this select committee. It is an opportunity to shine some daylight into this process, to get wisdom into it from varying different sectors. It has the power to compel evidence so that we can understand exactly what is going on. It will happen publicly and transparently so people can actually view what is going on. They can engage and participate in it. It can be in the public interest and the public can actually make their submissions and make their views heard. We are really keen and interested in supporting this and obviously will participate in it accordingly.
We are interested in the nomination of Mrs Beswick and the view of the rest of the crossbench is absolutely not a criticism of Mrs Beswick. However, I am interested in how the decision is made and whether the entire crossbench was consulted on that, but at the end of the day, that is not our business. We do not have a lack of faith in Mrs Beswick, but it is interesting to have her fully articulated in there and I do wonder what conversations were had around the Chamber and with the crossbench.
I will leave some time for contributions from other members. I thank the House for their support for our amendment and indicate that, yes, we will be supporting this motion.
