Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Deputy Speaker, I start my contribution to this motion at the very, I think, very human level and say that I am deeply saddened to take my feet today. I know that Jeremy Rockliff is a very good person. I think he has a good heart, and he absolutely believed that when he said it, that he would lead a government with heart. He believed that he could deliver, but issue after issue he has failed. He promised big and he has under-delivered. It is sad to be debating a motion like this. I accept that it is so serious and has a great gravity, but good heart does not necessarily equal confidence, and we have clearly expressed through our leader Dr Woodruff that we Greens do not maintain confidence in Premier Rockliff.
This under-delivery, I would like to point out, is in significant part due to the of capture of the Liberal party by the right wing of its party. It is clear that Premier Rockliff and his good heart has been pushed to the limit and to let people down in the way that he has.
The Greens have treated this motion with the seriousness that it deserves. In the absence of Dr Woodruff yesterday, we met to discuss it this morning where we resolved and confirmed our position. Dr Woodruff communicated that to both the Premier and to the Leader of the Opposition and then publicly announced it. We are aware of the gravity. This is a serious matter and so I take my feet today in that context and offer these comments in that context.
The Budget is truly bad. We have debated that significantly already today and the budget reply speeches are part-way through, but whether you look at health, housing, education, environment, the budget is really terrible. Health: we still deliver some of the worst outcomes in the country. When it comes to housing: the Budget bakes in failure. It literally bakes in failure with a housing waitlist that is growing to over 5000 people and those 5000 people are waiting longer ‑ and it is not 5000 people either, it is 5000 applications – it is couples and families, so it is way more than 5000 people.
When it comes to education, some of our results are the worst in the nation behind only the Northern Territory – literacy, numeracy and other indicators. When it comes to the environment, the State of the Environment Report that was released last year, a decade late, was a truly alarming wakeup call on so many different measures. It showed trends going downwards, whether it be sea surface temperature, whether it be other measures in terms of threatened species and the like. It demonstrated a significant crisis.
When it comes to the marine environment, I will read a couple of quotes from two scientists, Dr Coughanowr and Dr Lisa Gershwin. They have been reported as saying:
It is rather scary because it is a visible indicator that something is really bad right now.
Dr Gershwin said:
It’s too much, the ocean can’t take it. The ecosystem is teetering on collapse.
Despite the fact that our environment is what underpins us all as humans, and indeed as an economy in an island that trades on its clean, green reputation, we have seen an utterly woeful response from this government to the State of the Environment Report. From what we can tell, not a single target, not a single measure in the State of the Environment Report was specifically identified and funded in this Budget, and that is a crying shame.
Central to the budget crisis is of course the stadium, and that has been debated at length today. It adds $2 billion over 10 years to our debt, risking our credit rating – $600,000 or thereabouts in this Budget alone. There have been promises from this Premier to cap the public spending and also to deliver a process.
The cap promise was delivered on the first day of the election – $375,000,000 and ‘not a red cent more.’ It is a deliberate decision the Premier made to try to cauterise this issue, knowing it was undeliverable. The total cost has blown out already from $715 million to $945 million, and we know that it is only going to go northwards. With risk, with a toxic site, with all the complications of this site, with the project only 50 per cent designed, we know that it is going to be significantly more costly. It is going to be significantly delayed. That will increase costs because the Tasmanian taxpayer is on the hook for every single dollar of cost overruns and in fact, we have to pay a penalty to the AFL for any time blowouts. It is truly a dud deal the Premier signed us up to.
When it comes to the process, we are incredibly alarmed. The POSS process was brought into this place by the Premier. He has concocted an excuse to abandon that process based on the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s draft report. It is abundantly clear that the only reason he is abandoning the POSS process is because he knows that it is clear it is not going to deliver a positive recommendation for the stadium. In concocting an argument against the process, he has called into question the reputation, the integrity and the professionalism of the panel itself.
I read into Hansard again something the Premier said, as reported in an article on 22 April of this year. The journalist says Rockliff, who hit out at the report for failing to be independent, doubled down on his own initial criticism. This is the quote:
My view is that they went in there with a predetermined view. From my point of view, it wasn’t objective.
That is an appalling thing to do. It is an appalling thing for the leader of our state to do to an independent process that he himself has stood up via the order that came into this place. It demonstrates woeful disregard for not only the professionalism of those panel members ‑ esteemed panel members no less – but also a willingness to do anything and to go to any levels to get this project up, including perverting the process.
Not much more than a month after the Premier made that comment, there is a letter from the head of the state service to the planning commission that contradicts the Premier. The head of the State Service says:
Thank you again for the professionalism, expertise, and substantial work of the commission on this project.
What is it? Did they go in there with a predetermined view and they were not objective, or were they professional experts and did a substantial amount of work? I think we all know the answer there.
I spoke earlier about the bill that has been tabled in the parliament, but it is utterly contemptuous to be releasing this for public comment and then put it on the table of this House with that comment period still to continue. Worse than that is some of the stuff that it continues. I quote from a well‑known barrister, Greg Barnes, who writes in the Mercury regularly. He wrote on Monday:
Clause 34 in this bill is an extraordinary piece of work. It says that there are no rights of appeal to any court, tribunal, other person or body in respect of decisions made in good faith under the legislation. This is perhaps the most dangerous and blatant attack on the rule of law that we have seen in Tasmania in recent years. The effect of this is that if you are harmed by an action made by a minister or bureaucrat in the construction of the stadium, then too bad.
That is an indictment on this legislation and on this Premier, to think that they would be prepared to put in a bill into this House that perverts the process so substantially that we have eminent lawyers and commentators basically demonstrating that this is one of the most dangerous and blatant attacks on the rule of law. It is truly a shame.
Lastly, the blackmail of the Legislative Council – to blackmail the Legislative Council and say, ‘If you do not pass this legislation, well then the stadium is dead and the team is dead’, knowing that is entirely not the case. The POSS process grinds on. The head of the planning commission has made that very clear to the Macquarie Point Development Corporation, and it is written in your own legislation here. It says here in Schedule 4 – Legislation Revoked, ‘State Policies and Projects (Project of State Significance) Order 2023’. If this does not pass, that order remains in place and the planning commission continues to do its work, including the public hearings that they have already scheduled.
The stadium is central to the criticism of the Budget and also our lack of confidence in the Premier. It is easy to criticise the Premier and articulate our lost confidence, but I want to turn to Labor for a moment. I do not say this in bad spirit, but you have pointed to the Spirits and your scrutiny. You have pointed to the stadium and that you will scrutinise it. That is great. You have pointed to the Spirits as an example of how you scrutinise, and that is great, but it was too late. You did not scrutinise the Spirits and identify the problems before they were made.
Mr Willie – Nobody would know anything if we had not asked the questions.
Ms Haddad – It was us that exposed that.
Mr BAYLEY – We still spent the $500 million. We have had the cost. We have had the two‑year delay. We have the businesses that are now delayed.
Mr Winter – Where were you?
Mr Willie – I took the terms of reference to the Public Accounts Committee and set up the inquiry.
DEPUTY SPEAKER – Members on my left.
Mr BAYLEY – The Labor Party is writing a blank cheque for the stadium. Now is the time to scrutinise the stadium. Now is the time to stop this legislation. Now is the time to stop us spending $2 billion and racking up $2 billion of debt, not nitpicking and finding the problems in two years’ time when we have already blown the budget by $500 million. Not in two years’ time when the timelines have already blown out.
Full credit to you for unpicking the Spirits fiasco, but the damage was done ‑ a $500 million cost, two years’ delay, a huge cost to the economy and the businesses, as you articulate. Scrutiny is great, but let us do it at the right time so we avoid the mistakes. That is my point. You are writing a blank cheque for this stadium and it is a massive mistake. It is the Spirits, mark two.
We do not support the GBEs. They increase costs, they reduce services. The Budget ruled out some GBEs –
Mr Abetz – ‘We do not support the GBEs’?
Mr BAYLEY – Do not support the sale of the GBEs, my apologies, leader. We do not support flogging the GBEs. We do not support some GBEs like Forestry Tasmania and Tasracing, let us be very clear, but in terms of selling GBEs, we are not supportive of that as a strategy to plug holes in the budget.
While the government has ruled out some – TASCORP, Port Arthur, Tasracing, TasRail, Endura and the Public Trustee – there are others. We are deeply concerned about Forestry Tasmania and the 800,000 hectares of native forests and plantations that it manages; TasNetworks, with its poles and wires; and Aurora, the very entity that sends us our bills. A fire sale is not a solution to a budget crisis. They are public assets; they operate in the public good and they need to remain in public hands.
Clause (3) of this motion, ‘there is no faith to deliver major projects’, and, of course, the context is the Spirits; I have touched on that and the impact that it has had on the tourism market on business-owners and the like. I want to make the point that if you are a homeless person and you cannot afford a holiday, that is not a huge concern to you, the Spirits of Tasmania. If you are a child in Ashley and you fear for your safety, you are not thinking about the Spirits and the delay and the wharf at Devonport. Major projects for people have to be seen in context. For example, for Aboriginal people, the major projects that they care about are things like treaty, land return, and heritage protection. These are the things that are important, and these are the things that the Premier has also let Tasmanians down on.
There is one thing worse than ignoring somebody’s issues full stop, and that is probably agreeing to do something about it and then not delivering at all. I was at the Reconciliation Breakfast yesterday morning, as I know some others in the Chamber were. It was a pretty powerful event. There was 1000-odd people there, it was a massive event. Aunty Theresa Sainty and Uncle Jim Everett puralia meenamatta were both there and they both spoke very powerfully about both the Liberal government and the Labor opposition in terms of its support for activities that desecrate country, for opposing logging and the like, but one of the things they were most upset about was the government’s abandonment of the treaty process. They are clearly profoundly let down by the Premier’s walk back on the promise of a treaty. Truth-telling is one thing, but they made it very clear that truth-telling without a direction, without a pathway to treaty, is actually meaningless.
There was shock, there was disappointment, there was anger. It was really palpable. It was so palpable that Jim Everett walked out with some other members of the Aboriginal community. What he did, he walked out in an incredibly respectful way, respectful to both the Premier, to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and to Reconciliation TAS as well, he said:
I respect you, but I’m sorry, my community has asked me to walk out, and they’ve asked me to go away and start thinking about how do we get Jeremy Rockliff to come back to the table on treaty.
And he said exactly these words.
Don’t give up on us. Put treaty back on the table.
It is incredibly upsetting, incredibly disappointing, and incredible driver of no confidence that the Premier has so willingly walked away from treaty in the face of and at the request of clearly the right-wing elements in his party.
When it comes to land returns, one of the most profound and important things for Aboriginal people, nothing has been delivered since 2005. A couple of years ago, government squibbed the opportunity for something quite groundbreaking – Kooparoona Niara National Park, an Aboriginal-owned national park, returned to Aboriginal-ownership, managed by Aboriginal people.
It’s an absolute indictment on this government that private land owners, people like Jane and Tom Teniswood and others are actually leading the way when it comes to land returns. They are actually returning their own land to Aboriginal people to deliver land, justice and equity and they are absolutely showing up the government who holds hundreds of thousands of hectares of public land, really critical public land, that they can not find a way to return it back to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. It is a real shame, it is a shame on the government, but it is ultimately a shame on us all.
When it comes to heritage protection, this is something that drives Aboriginal people really strongly. Since July 2021, former minister Roger Jaensch came into this place and tabled a report that said that the Aboriginal Heritage Act does not work, it is not providing effective mechanisms for protection. Since then, we have had Robbins Island, we have had a cable car on Kunanyi assessed, we have had Arm End assessed at down the Derwent, and it is still not been updated. Promise to be updated, acknowledged as failing. Promised to be updated, not delivered.
Look what can happen, government can turn around and write a piece of legislation like this in a matter of a month. A month to get a big project up like a stadium, but they can not even deliver new Aboriginal heritage protection to deliver ancestral heritage for some of the most precious and irreplaceable heritage on this planet. It gets worse than that, because when it comes to the Tarkine tracks on the Takayna coast, this government has given $10 million to save face with four-wheel-drivers and to upgrade and expand facilities in the northwest. This is explicitly against the advice of its own statutory advisory body on Aboriginal heritage. Not just the Aboriginal Heritage Council, it is also against the explicit advice of the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council. Two statutory bodies say, ‘Do not do this, it is a bad idea, get Aboriginal Heritage surveys, you probably cannot do it.’ Yet, it has been ignored.
We know what happened last time, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre had to take this government to court under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to get it to do two Aboriginal Heritage surveys for the tracks they wanted to open on the Takayna coast. What happened when they did that report? As soon as the government commissioned that report, it came back and the government said, ‘Well, obviously we cannot do that anymore, it is going to damage too much Aboriginal heritage.’ You have not even done an Aboriginal Heritage assessment when it comes to these tracks on the Tarkine coast. In fact, he did a market analysis first. He did a market analysis to see how many people wanted to come and drive on these areas, before you have done an Aboriginal Heritage assessment. That is a dear shame.
While have a minute left, for people working in community services supporting problem gamblers, the mandatory pre-commitment card is a major project. This is a major project because it will save lives. It will stop domestic violence. It will stop crime, and it will absolutely help people’s mental health. In the worst-case scenarios, or best-case scenarios, it will stop suicide.
This government and this premier have abandoned it. They had gone to an election promising it. He had met with the Hoteliers Association and said that minister Ferguson would not be the minister post-election; that came to pass and we know what has happened since then. They have orchestrated a couple of reports to create the case for abandoning it, and now it is a piece of history. This is an absolute travesty as well.
These are major projects for people, as well. It is not just about the Spirits; it is about the things that are important to us as Tasmanians.
We do not have confidence in the Premier. When we step back and ask ourselves the question, do we have confidence in this Premier? Whether we are looking at the Budget, whether we are looking at broken promises, whether we are looking at failed commitments, it is clear that we cannot have confidence in this Premier.
