Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, what we have seen in the Budget over the last week is a self-confessed admission by the Liberals that they have spent $1.3 billion of taxpayers money in election commitments, so-called. It is another term for pork-barrelling – pork-promises. It is what the Integrity Commission has called electoral bribery. It has been happening under the Liberals for multiple elections now, 2018, 2021, the sports rort affair was extreme and very public and now we have had it at the recent election.
When Labor announced on the weekend – Dean Winter, the Leader of the Opposition ‑ that if it wins government at the next election that they will ban pork-barrelling, it was incredibly welcome to hear and many Tasmanians sighed relief. On Monday, he firmed that up to saying he would do that and be open to doing that, bringing on these reforms in this term of parliament and not wait. The Greens strongly support that. I have written to the Leader of the Opposition showing our support, working together to stamp out this pork-barrelling.
What happened was an immediate blowback from the Liberals. It is obviously a huge threat to their electoral success because they have used it with that purpose in multiple elections, and Premier Jeremy Rockliff said that Labor’s proposal is ‘breathtaking in its hypocrisy’, and that was an extraordinary statement to come out so hard against what is obviously a corrupted process. The Minister for Business, Industry and Resources, Eric Abetz, took it to another low with a media release that he issued and he said:
The Labor Opposition is back in bed with the Greens planning to trash Tasmanian democracy and entrench big brother Government in the State.
Dean Winter’s plans to have a politburo of bureaucrats review and strike out election commitments should send a shiver through the community.
It’s up to Tasmanian voters to decide how their money is spent, not unelected government employees.
The Government is elected to govern, not to have its election commitments buried by red tape and outsourced to unelected, unaccountable officials.
Democratically elected members of Parliament should not be the ventriloquist dolls of bureaucrats.
This was an offensive statement by Mr Abetz. It was a whacky, tin hat response, but beneath it there was a real demonising of hardworking Tasmanian public servants. Describing them as not working in the public interest is offensive. It is one thing to attack members of parliament, but it is quite different and wrong to imply that the processes and intentions of State Services are disreputable. I want to read a statement from Thirza White, the head of the CPSU. She said:
Minister Abetz’s comments are incredibly offensive to the 35,000 plus public servants who dedicate their working lives to delivering services to the community. In addition to being offensive, these comments are reckless and downright dangerous. There is absolutely no place for this divisive commentary that spreads disinformation and mistruths about how government operates and by consequence erodes trust in our Public Service. This language is the language used by Trump in his deliberate attempt to erode trust in public officials, paving the way for hyper politicisation and dismantling of core foundations of civil society and democracy. Minister Abetz should apologise or resign.
On behalf of the Greens, I ask him to make an apology for his comments. He fervently defends his government’s right to determine what spending commitments are dished out at election time. His government must also take responsibility for determining what services will be cut to fund these election commitments.
Ms White finishes by saying:
Instead, his government is more than happy to use senior public servants as a shield to avoid responsibility and accountability.
No one has a problem with giving money to community groups. There are so many needy and deserving ones. The only thing that is a problem is political parties hand‑picking which ones get it to suit their political interests, and sometimes even their personal ones. What should happen is that they are assessed by an independent grants process, which is what happens with all other government grants. It is a process governed by a long‑established risk audit committee of government and a high‑level committee that comprises external actuaries, audit experts. We hope that Minister Abetz will apologise for those offensive comments.
