Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I rise to speak on this no confidence motion in support of it. I feel the weight of the debate today, but I also feel the weight of the difficulties being felt and lived by Tasmanians around our state. I have been listening to the government speakers and there have been some very fanciful things said across yesterday and this morning, selective things where they cherry-pick the figures that they want to talk about.
What is really happening is that too many Tasmanians are missing out because of mismanagement by this government and by a failure of priorities. People of Tasmania have been pushed down the list and despite everything the Premier says about this being a budget for the people, the Premier and the government have pandered to business and corporations and they turn a deaf ear to what the people need. They have been captured, and all Tasmanians are poorer because of this. The evidence for this is pretty stark.
Take health, for example. Last week a report was tabled by the Auditor-General. It slipped under the radar in the midst of the budget and stadium debate but looking at the report, it provides a great case study that illustrates the many problems in management of this state budget. The Auditor-General’s report into the Department of Health funding of Community Services was startling in the mismanagement it identified. The report found that the funding of organisations was not strategic, it did not necessarily advance government objectives, funding was not evidence-based or risk-assessed, and evaluation was often not conducted before more funding was granted.
What is worse is these issues were known about for years but almost nothing was done by the Department of Health. The Auditor-General found that health grants exposed the government to risk and there was significant potential and actual mismanagement of funds. The Auditor-General said there was evidence that these issues were also present in other grant programs in other agencies. I understand from speaking with people who work in the community sector organisations that this report has been used last week to justify the cutting of funding in forward Estimates for community service organisations, which is shameful.
Mismanagement is writ large in this report, and it is also reflective of broader mismanagement of the budget. Looking at health more broadly, this government like to talk about the highest funding ever for health, but the reality is one would expect health costs to increase every year and require more funding, but every year the Health spending runs over budget and requires a top-up. This year’s Budget reflects some of that top-up in the baseline, but it still does not match what was spent last year and it will not be enough. That has very real impacts. The Budget’s own performance targets are fanciful.
The target for patients being admitted, referred or discharged from emergency departments for this year is greater than 90 per cent, and for the 2025‑26 Budget period it is also greater than or equal to 90 per cent. Those targets have been included despite the current figure listed on the Department of Health’s dashboard yesterday showing that less than 50 per cent of patients are being admitted, referred or discharged from emergency departments, and that figure is lower than the figure that is in the 2023‑24 Budget.
Yesterday, 17 patients at the LGH waited for more than 24 hours to be admitted. The government’s targets are a stark reminder of their failings, and the glowing figures they like to share in here are a carefully selected snapshot of a very small frame. The Minister for Health yesterday listed a bunch of positive employment figures, but right now vacancies are what the ANMF describe as ‘excessive.’ There are 92.35 FTE vacancies at LGH, and 160.7 full-time equivalent vacancies at the Royal Hobart Hospital. There is simply not enough money in the Budget for any kind of pay rise that will help us to attract or retain nurses and midwives in this state.
This government under Jeremy Rockliff are not investing in health to the level that will meet the need. They are prioritising the stadium, and Tasmanians are waiting and waiting for the health care they need.
Community service organisations – on Friday I attended the Tasmanian Council of Social Service Budget Briefing. It is hard to capture the level of consternation and deep worry that was in that room, but the worry amongst community service organisations is palpable and real. They are looking at a Budget that does not give them the funding they need to meet community need.
Community Connectors – there was an agreed expansion of this program. The funding that is in the Budget will allow a two‑hour per week increase in service in each of the neighbourhood houses. The need is immense. Two hours a week of extra work time is not going to cover that need.
There are multiple peak bodies – I know of five or six – that do not have the funding allocated to them to fulfil their role properly, and they are going to have to cut back on what they do. Across the board, community organisations say needs are growing – the level of need is increasing; the acuity of the need is increasing – and yet their funding is not keeping pace. You only have to look at the grants line in the Budget to see that grants are dropping.
This government under the Premier are heartless and tone deaf to the calls for more and to the needs, and they have amplified this tone deafness when the minister called for community organisations to become more efficient and innovative. It is hard to find a sector that are more efficient and innovative already. They already run on the smell of an oily rag and here they are being asked to do better, with less, to meet greater need.
Disability Services – this is a changing space at the moment, with foundational supports to become the responsibility of the states. An agreement has not been reached on that yet, but we know that people with disabilities in Tasmania are being taken off the NDIS as their cases are being reassessed. The pace of reassessments is increasing, and many are exiting from the screens. Those needing assessment are having their applications slowed and having to wait for longer. People with disability are missing out, caught in the cracks of funding restrictions and reductions and changes, and there is nothing in the Tasmanian Budget for these people ‑ nothing. They are caught up between upcoming funding changes and the tightening of the NDIS belt, and this is another example of Tasmanians missing out because of wrong priorities.
Speaking of priorities, there are some curious priorities in this Budget. The government have managed to find more money for what they want to, and an example of this is our prisons. The Tasmanian Prison Service is going to get an extra $25 million on top of their regular Budget to, as they say, ‘contribute to costs associated with increasing inmate numbers’.
This government love locking people up. They love shock and awe. They love the display of power over people with their tough on crime ideology.
This is all part of the government’s lurch to the right that the Greens have been calling out for some time. The reality is that the Liberals are stacked with right‑wing ideologues, and the Premier has allowed them to dictate the direction and initiatives of his government. This is detrimental to our state, including in areas such as Corrections, where the government love locking people up.
The prison numbers are growing as we lock up more Aboriginal people, the poor, the mentally ill and the disabled. That is despite knowing that it does not work. Locking up people does not make them any better. It makes them more likely to end up back in prison, caught in a cycle of crime. If we are going to talk about money costing more in that way, it is another example of bad priorities and wasted money.
Tough on Crime is not just affecting adults, it is terrible for young people. It flies in the face of all the evidence of what works when working with troubled young people. It flies against the government’s own Youth Justice Blueprint. Tough on crime is heartless, punitive, counterproductive, and ultimately harms children, and the Premier has not stood up to this. He has not pushed back and required better of his ministers, and this is a shame to our state.
Another shame to our state and a failure of this Premier in government is Ashley Youth Detention Centre. It is still open, despite a promise that it would be closed by the end of last year. While Ashley Youth Detention Centre remains open, young people remain at risk. This is not just a failure to close Ashley, it is also a failure to do the work needed to close it. We know what that work is. It is alternative bail facilities. It is wrap‑around support. It is therapeutic services that meet the needs of young people that help address those factors that lead to them becoming engaged in criminal behaviour.
At the moment those things have not been put in place, they have not been prioritised, the work is too slow. The Premier is failing young people. These things, which I have talked about with young people, were part of the commission of inquiry recommendations – serious recommendations that were made to keep children safe. Looking at the funding of the services, the recommendations are not being fulfilled.
A lot of work might be happening on commission of inquiry recommendations, but on outcomes like closing Ashley and keeping children safe, we are seeing failings. The government are going through the motions of implementing commission of inquiry recommendations, but when you look at the evidence provided to committees in hearings, there are a lot of glib, superficial, high-level words that do not reflect the seriousness of what is needed.
Even in this Budget, the Premier and ministers have talked about the commission of inquiry as if it is in the past. They are talking about it and how it has contributed to the debt that we are in now, as if it is done and behind us. But the commission of inquiry recommendations are far from being implemented and much more work needs to be done, and we must ensure this is not forgotten and not hidden in figures in a Budget that are difficult to find.
Again, this government under this Premier has faulty priorities and young people are missing out. All these wrong priorities and the decisions that the government has been making about where they will place their money have been for a rolling collection of election promises that have broken the budget, for cherry‑picked projects and for the Macquarie Point Stadium ‑ a glory project that the Premier has staked his reputation on but which will send us into greater and greater levels of debt.
Servicing those debts pulls money away from Tasmanians. It pulls money away from the services and supports that they need. The stadium is sucking the air out of this state. It is sucking funding out of services, and it is sucking the life, sometimes quite literally, out of Tasmanians who are missing out.
This whole no‑confidence situation is far from ideal. It seems grounded in brinkmanship and is leading to instability. Nothing is black and white. What we have now is also far from ideal and cannot continue. The Greens support this no‑confidence motion because we have long had no confidence in the Premier for all the reasons we have outlined over yesterday and today. But I reiterate what my colleagues have said: we are committed to stability, and we are ready to work with other members here to do the best for Tasmanians.
We will always fight for Tasmanians and our precious environment. Today that means supporting this no confidence motion. Whatever shakes out of this such situation, may it bring positive change for the people of Tasmania. The Greens stand ready for whatever comes next, willing to do our part to ensure Tasmanians have all they need to live well.
