Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, we do need to achieve leave so that we can debate this motion. I think the Leader of the Opposition’s contribution there demonstrates exactly why he led with a conversation about the health, the housing, the education crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, and yet this motion is fundamentally anchored to the Labor Party’s abrogation of its responsibility to properly scrutinise the government and hold it to account over the stadium. A $2 billion dollar debt burden over 10 years. A huge amount of money that is going to be invested into it. A development that is going to impact on the very fabric of our city, the transport, the pedestrian capacity and safety and the like.
Mr Winter – Did agree with this plan this morning?
The SPEAKER – Leader of the Opposition.
Mr BAYLEY – The Leader of the Opposition talks about the Greens not being serious in this place. Leader of the Opposition, how many bills and how many pieces of legislation have you bought into this House and passed?
Mr Winter – Industrial manslaughter last year.
The SPEAKER – Leader of the Opposition is warned. The Deputy Leader will address the seeking of leave.
Mr BAYLEY – It is it is urgent and it is necessary that we debate this motion because Labor is abrogating each responsibility. It promised the Tasmanian people that it would fight this stadium. It promised repeatedly in social media presentations, in petitions, indeed in policy announcements in the lead up to two elections in 2024. Not just the general election that we went to, but the Legislative Council election, including the Legislative Council seat of Elwick, which was vacated by Mr Willie. They did not even –
The SPEAKER – We are currently debating a motion to seek leave to move a motion to suspend, which is the urgency one. This is a seeking of leave. Can we just address it? Then we might be able to move to the next motion.
Mr BAYLEY – I am very keen to make sure that we do get to speak to this motion –
The SPEAKER – The motion at the moment is seeking leave. Please address the seeking of leave, not the substantive reason for a suspension, which is the next motion.
Mr BAYLEY – Because it is urgent that we debate this. At the moment, this House is going to be asked – it looks like it is going to be asked – to consider special enabling legislation for one of the biggest infrastructure projects that this state has seen, and indeed the biggest infrastructure project that is on the books at the moment – an infrastructure project that the government’s own expert panel, full of its people that it has picked, has roundly condemned.
Yet the opposition leader and the Labor party has vacated the space. It promised to hold the government to account – not only to scrutinise the spend, not only to scrutinise the project, but to hold the government to account in terms of the cap.
The SPEAKER – Some latitude has been given to three people – the Leader of the House, the Leader of the Greens and the Leader of the Opposition – on the seeking of leave, but this is only about the seeking of leave. The next motion is where you put your case for why it is urgent to suspend Standing Orders. This is a seeking of leave to do that. Please address that, and if you have read the numbers, you can probably move to that given the statements that have been made.
Mr BAYLEY – I respect your ruling on that, and I will just reiterate that leave is critically important because we do need to get to the point where we debate this motion. It is in the interests of Tasmanians that we have a conversation about the credibility of the Labor Party and the Labor leader when it comes to his commitments and their commitments in relation to this stadium. This is a stadium that will have severe implications for the future of Tasmania – not only our debt but the functionality of this city.
In terms of leave, we need to get to the point where we can debate this motion so we can have a proper conversation about the commitments the Labor Party and the Labor Leader made, and the abrogation of their responsibility and the abandonment of those commitments.
