Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, the Greens have worked very hard to achieve positive outcomes for Tasmanians in this parliament, as people elected us to do. We have collaborated with all sides of the Chamber, and we have worked hard to make improvements for Tasmania in legislation, including and perhaps most especially notable are the changes to election laws about donations disclosure. That means that we will all be required to be open and honest with Tasmanians about where we get money to fund us as candidates in election periods. This is just one example of the work that we have done, and we do not take this decision lightly to support this no confidence motion today, not at all. We believe that a line has to be drawn to hold politicians, leaders accountable for their actions, and we believe that the Premier has well and truly crossed that line.
In recent months in particular he has shown himself to be dishonest and not able to be trusted. That is not to us, but it is to the Tasmanian people. He has shown contempt by lying and breaking fundamental election promises. At the top of the list are the Premier’s statements on the first announcement in the state election snap campaign last year where he promised Tasmanians that the amount that would be spent on a stadium would be $375 million and ‘not a red cent more.’ He was very clear about that and was questioned multiple times by the media, by the Greens in parliament over the years since. He promised that the rest of the money would come from public-private partnerships. That never happened. It is very clear that what Tasmanians believed and the reason that the Premier and his government are here and in a minority government situation today is because of that statement at the beginning of the election campaign.
What we have seen since then is the escalating costs of the stadium and the more information that has come out shows that the costs are continuing to increase, and we are not at the end yet because as we have heard, the stadium itself is only 50 per cent designed. We are certainly not at the end of the costs. We know the stadium, according to Saul Eslake, Dr Nicholas Gruen and now the Tasmanian Planning Commission will cost in the order of something like $2 billion over the next decade. That is a truly massive intergenerational debt for Tasmanians.
There is radio silence from the opposition leader, Dean Winter, about this issue, about concern for that extra debt. There has been much conversation in this Chamber about the Budget and how devastating it is, and the Greens fully agree. However, we have to look at the choices that are being made by Jeremy Rockliff as leader and that is what we take issue with.
We take issue with the wrong choices he is making; choices which Tasmanians do not agree with; choices regarding which Tasmania have tried so many times to have their voices heard. People try to speak to Jeremy Rockliff and his government about such important issues like the stadium, like the protection of Kunanyi/Mount Wellington. like the position that we that we must take on the Pokies Mandatory Precommitment Card; about protection for our beautiful native forests which are under threat by the Liberals – an extra 39,000 hectares that they want to log and burn. They desperately try to be heard about the state of the marine environment, which is edging towards the tipping point because the Liberals have refused to stand up to big salmon corporations, because Jeremy Rockliff has been weak and has allowed them to run the show instead of writing the laws we need to protect our marine environment, to protect our forests and our waterways and our water catchments, to make sure Tasmanians have clean drinking water, soils that will continue to be productive into the future.
Under Jeremy Rockliff there is no money in this budget to respond to the devastating State of the Environment report. It is awesomely frightening how the state of the Tasmanian environment is trending. It is trending down rapidly. Serious recommendations were made and not a single one of them was funded in this budget. Instead, what we have is money towards a new stadium at Macquarie Point in Hobart that we do not need – that we never needed. One of the issues with Jeremy Rockliff in his time as Premier has been his inability to stand up to bullies.
It was so clear that he had a choice when he became Premier. Peter Gutwein, previous premier, made a statement in support of a new stadium in in Macquarie Point, which – let us be clear – no one was in the room, but the majority of Tasmanians fully believe that Gil McLaughlin pointed at the map and said, ‘I want this spot, this is the best spot, give it to me.’ Peter Gutwein said yes, and made an announcement in the state of the state speech before he resigned a month later that said Tasmania will have a new stadium. There was no mandate for that, and it was on the nose instantly. People could obviously see, when we have two stadiums, a tiny little state like Tasmania cannot afford a new stadium, either the one proposed at Macquarie Point or the other one that is proposed for Hobart.
We do not support a stadium in Hobart, a new stadium in Hobart. Jeremy Rockliff had a choice at that point in time and what he did not choose was to stand up and back the hundreds of thousands of Tasmanians who demand and deserve our AFL/AFLW teams. We have been vindicated at looking at the incredible strength of support for the AFL/AFLW teams.
We have in the Devils something that over 100,000 Tasmanian-based people have got behind; over 200,000 people, if you count, I expect, other Tasmanians who are living on the mainland. We believe, we know, that we have the right, we have the capacity, we have the strength to back those teams. However, Jeremy Rockliff did not actually have that in him, and that was the mistake he made. Since then he has continually been dishonest with Tasmanians about what is going on. He was dishonest to Ms Cassy O’Connor when he said that a condition for the Greens signing on to support AFL/AFLW teams would not include a stadium. He was not honest with her about that.
We would never have signed up to a new stadium and now what we hear in the community is what we expected to hear, which is over 70 per cent of people in Bass and Braddon, and I believe something to the order of that in Lyons, do not want a new stadium because they can look at what the Liberals are doing under the Budget, under Jeremy Rockliff. Year on year services are being cut, and we have had serious reductions in services in this budget. There are so many I can go through, but I just want to illustrate a few to make the point. While we are spending money, not just on the idea of the construction of a stadium, but on keeping the whole ship of Macquarie Point Development Corporation going, all those lawyers, all those people, designed to smear the reputations of Nicholas Gruen and our independent Tasmanian Planning Commission panel – who, mind you, are only doing their job because we told them to. It was Jeremy Rockliff’s idea to tell them to do that, and when he did not get the result he wanted to hear, he went on the attack.
What sort of integrity is it to attack good-hearted, independent experts who are doing the job you told them to do because they are not giving information that you want to hear? What person would do that? A person that we do not have confidence in to lead this state.
A member – Like you do, day in and day out.
Mr Abetz – The queen of personal attacks.
The SPEAKER – Order.
Dr WOODRUFF – We do not have confidence in that sort of leadership, because it is attempting to dismiss the validity of the comments they are making, that the majority of Tasmanians who have made submissions also pointed out to the Premier. It is pretty clear from the response of him and his government that they are taking no notice whatsoever of the submissions and the concerns that people raised in their submissions to the planning commission. That is because they are not letting the planning commission’s process run out.
They are bringing in a corrupted process of legislation to ram an approval for a stadium through this parliament – an abuse of legislative processes that has never been seen in the history of Tasmania. I cannot really speak enough about the outrage in the community – not just at having up to $2 billion in debt and spending over $1 billion on the stadium itself – but to run a corrupted process like that, which is specifically designed to cut out the community.
It is designed to cut out the information that will come from the planning commission, which in all likelihood will say, ‘We do not recommend a stadium because it cannot fit, it would be a devastating blight on the centre of Hobart, it will cost the state a fortune for generations to come, it will be an act of utter disrespect to all ex-servicemen and servicewomen and their families, and it will be utterly disrespectful to the Aboriginal community’. That is what they are going to say, and the Premier does not want that formal information sitting in front of him.
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – I will point out that Dr Woodruff did not interject on anyone else’s contribution, and as unusual as that may be, the same respect will be afforded to Dr Woodruff in her contribution.
Dr WOODRUFF – I want to illustrate the priorities instead that the Premier chose to include in the Budget. The northern renal unit redevelopment at Kings Meadows: it currently has 15 bays and the redevelopment is funded for 18 bays, but it is very clear it needs to be 24 bays. The six bays coming out of the northern renal unit that should be funded – there was $10 million that the state received from the federal government in 2019, but there is no extra money that has been put in there from the state. That is an infrastructure spend that we should be prioritising. It is not good to prioritise building a stadium the majority of Tasmanians do not want when we are not spending money on a renal unit.
It is also an absolute outrage that neighbourhood houses who are on the front line in our communities, with people who are struggling – vulnerable people – have not had the money put into their community connectors that was promised. There is not enough money going into those places, not as was promised. They are there every single day with people who cannot get access to services who desperately need support, people who cannot access services without somebody holding their hand.
At the same time, those neighbourhood house workers are dealing with people who are functionally illiterate. In this Budget, we have now confirmation that Jeremy Rockliff’s government is removing all money from the 26Ten literacy program. That is an absolute outrage, in the state that has the lowest level of functional literacy in the country by the last measure. There is no money after the end of this year for 26Ten. That is what people have been told. These are the appalling priorities –
Mr Rockliff – Not true.
Dr WOODRUFF – Well, it is not in the budget paper, Premier. It is not in the Budget, and people in the sector understand it is finished. If there is something you would like to share with us that your minister refuses to tell, that would be great. Community services had to go to the TasCOSS briefing and they were flicking through the budget papers, desperately trying to find out if their services were going to be funded or not. It is the level of disrespect, it is the lack of listening to people that is a signature piece for Jeremy Rockliff’s government. For all the talk about transparency and openness, for all the talk about listening to people, it is just words. If there is something that I have learnt in my life that is truer than most other things, it is that you do not judge a person by their words, you judge them by their actions.
We have looked into this budget paper and we have seen devastating cuts. On top of that, we have a Premier now committed to cutting an extra two‑and‑a‑half thousand jobs from the public service and privatising government businesses, the businesses that we desperately need. We need to have buses on our roads; under the Liberals, they have been cut. Buses do not turn up; bus routes have been cut. We need to have free public transport. We need to have accessible buses for people who have no other form of transport, and there is no way that will happen if we privatise Metro.
There is no way that people will not have an increase in their car rego and that people will not be paying higher prices if we privatise businesses like MAIB and TasNetworks. We are deeply concerned at where Jeremy Rockliff has got to as a leader. I absolutely acknowledge, and want to put on the record, that the Premier did an amazing job of shepherding us through the commission of inquiry. I absolutely commend Jeremy Rockliff as Premier for the work he did in the commission of inquiry. That was an incredibly important point in Tasmania’s history and there is no doubt that he did an enormous body of work, and on behalf of all of us, I thank him for that.
I thank him for that, but it is not enough to rest on past deeds, because every day in this place we are called to confront the reality of Tasmanians and their lives, and what they want us to do to represent them. It is so clear that Jeremy Rockliff had a choice on the stadium. He had a choice on the pokies mandatory precommitment card and he backflipped on the promises that he had made to Tasmania. He backflipped on the $375 million cap and he backflipped on introducing a nation‑leading mandatory pre‑commitment card that would have helped Tasmanians who are struggling. Instead, we have disadvantage for some of the most poor people in Tasmania entrenched for generations. That would have made all the difference to their lives and he did not make that choice.
Instead, he listened to big corporations and big business and developer mates, and that is the hallmark of how Jeremy Rockliff has run this place. He has always let the big interests and the big corporations run the show. He has never stood up to those people and he has never stood, consequently, for the people of Tasmania. When you have the appalling mass mortality event and the terrible levels of pollution that are going into our very vulnerable and sensitive marine waterways, we must be concerned at a Premier who is incapable of standing up to salmon corporations, multinational foreign‑owned salmon corporations, instead of putting the interest of Tasmanians first.
We must have functioning, healthy ecosystems, we must have forests that are healthy and alive, storing our carbon, protecting our biodiversity. Instead, in this Budget, under Jeremy Rockliff, we have had massive cuts over the forward Estimates to the threatened species program, to the natural values management program, to biosecurity. These are core parts of protecting our environment. It is not putting more money in ‑ we are not even keeping pace. We are massively cutting from those areas over the next four years while we are in the midst of an evolving and expanding climate crisis. The threatened species are moving closer and closer to extinction. We have a Premier who will not stand up and protect the extinction of a species like the Maugean skate. He will not stand up to the government‑owned Forestry Tasmania business which is flattening and burning the habitat for the swift parrot. It is the swift parrot that would go extinct under Jeremy Rockliff’s policies when he is in charge. He is in charge of that.
When every other sensible state and country around the world is moving away from native forest logging and burning in a climate and biodiversity crisis, Jeremy Rockliff’s government is walking closer towards doing that. He wants more. He wants to go in harder. This is this is the sign of a person who is utterly out of touch with the world that we live in and most importantly, utterly out of touch with the majority of Tasmanians, who we understand do not support native forest logging and burning.
We are concerned about the fact that this motion does not properly capture the reality of the situation. I want to move an amendment to this motion, because what we need to do is – the first clause of the motion is that Mr Winter moves that the House agrees the Premier’s budget mismanagement is doing significant long‑term damage to Tasmania. The Labor Party’s motion is silent on the issue of the stadium. The stadium is the biggest threat to our long‑term debt spiral that the Liberals have put us into. It was pointed out very clearly by Nicholas Gruen and by the Planning Commission’s dire report that it would affect our credit rating if we continue down that path now. It is concerning that the Leader of the Opposition is silent on this issue when he says he is so concerned about the state of the budget. The Greens are. We know other members of the crossbench are very concerned about it as well.
I move the following amendment –
Clause (1), after ‘Tasmania’.
Insert ‘, compounded by his plan to fund a new stadium in Hobart’
Clause 1 would read:
- Agrees the Premier’s budget mismanagement is doing significant long‑term damage to Tasmania, compounded by his plan to fund a new stadium in Hobart.
There is no doubt Tasmanians do not want a new stadium in Hobart. They do not want any new stadium. We are not picking favourites. I know the Labor Party has a position where they support stadium 2.0, the so‑called ‘second stadium in Hobart’ –
Mr Winter – We support building a stadium. You have been complaining we support the other one.
Dr WOODRUFF – but we do not. We understand that Tasmanians are comprehensively – they do not care if a new stadium in Hobart is a little bit here or a little bit there, whether it is on one side of Macquarie Point or the other – they do not want a new stadium. They do not want the money, they do not want the debt. They do not want the outrage with the warped priorities. They do not want a new stadium. We have two stadiums. We have 110,000 people supporting our AFL and AFLW teams. We have a perfectly fantastic stadium in York Park and at Ninja Stadium in Bellerive. We do not want a new stadium anywhere in Hobart and Tasmanians do not want it either.
We move this amendment because it is very important, if the opposition leader is serious about the damage to the budget, that we get the support of Labor in particular, who are moving this motion of no confidence. This is a serious matter.
The SPEAKER – I will clarify for members that we are now on the amendment and the Leader has a 30 minute contribution to make on the amendment and contribution, starting now.
Dr WOODRUFF – I can inform the House that I will not be spending 30 minutes on this amendment, but I do understand that I have it. Thank you.
The SPEAKER – I am explaining the clock to people, Dr Woodruff. You have an entitlement for it and we are now debating the amendment and not the substantive motion.
Dr WOODRUFF – This is the crux of why we are here today. It started with a number of lies. It started with a promise at the state election. It has been a successive number of lies to parliament and to the people of Tasmania over the last year. It has come to a state of absurdity if it was not such a serious issue. We can all see from the state of the Budget that was handed down last week that Tasmania is in a terrible place when we have more than $10 billion of debt that the Liberals have walked us into over the next four years. We do not support, will not support, putting any extra burden onto that budget. Instead, we would walk it around, we would walk it back. It is going to be a hard place to get back from that level of debt, but the Greens are committed to doing it. We are committed to working productively in this parliament to work that debt back, and the start of that is not by adding anymore to it. That means we cannot have a new stadium in Hobart, full stop, end of the story.
It is pretty clear that if you care about the state of the budget, if you believe that the budget is being mismanaged, then we need to have support from people in this place to make that statement. We need to make that statement. Every member in this place needs to announce their position about a new stadium in Hobart because it is core to the top line of the motion that we have before us today.
I have no doubt that the Leader of the Opposition, Dean Winter, must do his best to maintain the stability in this place. He must represent the views of Tasmanians. If he is serious in his position as the Leader of the Opposition, he must do that because that is his job. His job is to scrutinise the government of the day. His job is to hold them to account. Irrespective of the motion before us, we are seeing a devastating failure by Dean Winter in his ability to act as the Leader of the Opposition on the matter of the stadium.
When the Labor party gave unconditional support for the stadium, whatever the cost, they said, whatever the problems, whatever the overreach, whatever the damage, Labor said they would support a stadium legislation approval going through parliament. That is an abandonment of the role of the opposition, and it is important, it is incumbent on Dean Winter as opposition leader, if he is serious about being the opposition leader, if he is serious about the motion that he has brought on today, where he says in its top line, that ‘the Premier’s budget mismanagement is doing significant long term damage’. If he understands, as we all have, that we have been told by economic experts that putting an extra up to $2 billion of debt on our books over the next ten years would be bad for our state and our state’s credit rating, then he must support this motion.
It is critical for Tasmanians to understand where we all sit on that matter, and it is a critical part of the motion. I will move that now and then I can return and make some other comments depending on how that goes.
The SPEAKER – There are seven minutes left on your substantive contribution after the result on this.
Ms WOODRUFF – Thank you honourable speaker. I will move that.
The SPEAKER – You moved it seven minutes ago, so you now either need to resume your seat to allow other speakers. We are now speaking to the amendment.
