Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens)(by leave) – Honourable Speaker, while I speak here tonight, I am thinking in my mind of the many Tasmanians over the decades, but particularly over recent years, who have campaigned on this important issue. It is for them that the Greens have moved the motion of no confidence today and this one on moving of privilege.
The SPEAKER – You need to move that motion.
Dr WOODRUFF – I move –
That the House refers the Premier, the honourable Jeremy Rockliff MP, to the Privileges and Conduct Committee –
The SPEAKER – You need to move the motion for the suspension of the debate. You must move to suspend Standing Orders to allow the debate.
Dr WOODRUFF – I move –
That so much of Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent such a motion from being dealt with forthwith:
That the House refers the Premier, the honourable Jeremy Rockliff MP, to the Privileges and Conduct Committee to investigate and report upon whether he deliberately lied to Tasmanians about his mandatory pre‑commitment card during the 2024 election and whether or not this is a breach of the code of conduct contained in the Standing Orders of the House of Assembly.
As I said, honourable Speaker, I have in my mind, and we had before us today in bringing the no-confidence motion that we prepared, the voices of Tasmanians who have campaigned for decades to end the scourge of pokies in Tasmania and to put in place policies to protect vulnerable Tasmanians. A range of speakers said during the no-confidence motion that they felt what we said was overreach, and they did not think our statements could be substantiated. On behalf of the Greens, I stand by our statements. They are grounded in fact and we do not believe that it is possible to besmirch a person by speaking the truth.
Words might hurt, but the truth speaks for itself on this matter. What we saw during the election campaign was a Premier who presented a policy commitment that was not crystal clear, and he was asked repeatedly by members of the media with the encouragement and the voices behind them of people in the community, people in the community sector, people from TasCOSS, people from Anglicare, people from all the other organisations that work with vulnerable Tasmanians addicted to gambling, whose lives and livelihoods are damaged by the current pokies free for all, which takes money from them and gives it to Federal and the THA, a number of specific questions. He made absolutely crystal-clear commitments to continuing on with that promise to implement the mandatory pre‑commitment card to prevent people from being harmed.
This is not about a policy switch. This is about the Premier lying to the people of Tasmania, repeatedly, and not being honest. What I am speaking about now is the code of conduct, which says, regarding the accuracy of statements:
A member must not mislead parliament or the public in statements that they make –
The SPEAKER – Leader of the Greens, I will bring you back to the procedural motion before us, which is the suspension of Standing Orders, not the substance of the debate.
Dr WOODRUFF – It is pretty important to understand what it is that we are trying to do here.
The SPEAKER – I will ask you to at least refer to the suspension to make it –
Dr WOODRUFF – That is why it is important to do this tonight, because we have just come off the back of a no confidence debate where members have asked and said repeatedly ‑ that they did not think that there was the information before them and that they felt that some of the statements that we had made were overreach. We stand by our statements.
We know we have evidence to back them and we believe that we need to now, as a matter of urgency, refer the Premier to the privileges committee so that he can be properly investigated by a panel of his peers in parliament, who can look at the questions that have been raised and to look at the allegations that have been made and to specifically look at the code of conduct for members of parliament, because we do not believe the code of conduct in the Standing Orders has been adhered to by the Premier.
We believe he is in breach. It is a serious matter of betrayal and a lack of honesty and transparency, and we believe that he needs to appear before the privileges committee and have the capacity for a proper investigation, a formal investigation, so that people can appear and witnesses can be called.
Time expired.
