Ms BURNET (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, my colleague, Mr Bayley, has spoken to the amendment, so I won’t speak about that, but I will speak about transparency. The only transparent thing about this is the proposed roof. There is nothing transparent about the government’s proposal and I thank the member for Clark for bringing this motion for debate today.
We’re all out on the doors during the election, and one of the things that came up, certainly in Clark, was – time and time again – that we want the parliament to work differently, we want transparency in processes, and we want honesty from governments. There are quite a lot of things at stake. I don’t think we’ve seen enough transparency, so I do welcome the member for Clark’s motion. It’s an important motion to consider and it’s an important reminder to the government and everybody who wants to see the stadium built.
Now, no matter if you want the stadium built or not, we should have transparency in the process. It should be laid out quite clearly and the TPC report will be arriving on our desks on 17 September and that will be laid out. I am sure they will be doing a very thorough job. They certainly had a lot of questions in relation to the stadium. As spokesperson for the Greens for transport, one of the biggest concerns that I have is how the transport’s going to work and support the stadium project.
One of the other things that happened during the election, there was an article on the ABC online on Monday, 28 July. In short, it says –
The Tasmanian Government has been operating in what’s called caretaker mode since the parliament was dissolved ahead of the recent state election. Tasmanian Labor has accused the Government of breaching caretaker conventions over its handling of two issues ‑ the Marinus Link undersea electricity cable and an increase in ferry operator TT Line’s borrowing capacity.
We had this question about the government’s processes and the transparency related to that during caretaker mode. These transparency issues should be something that we don’t have to revisit every so often. It is far too frequently. It was only July that we had those two issues about transparency and, these deals done behind closed doors. We need to see this. It is incumbent on the government to make sure that information is available to the taxpayers and all Tasmanians because this stadium and everything that goes around that has a huge impact on Tasmanians and Tasmania’s bottom line. It is not good enough and is something that I urge all members to support.
