Ms ROSOL – Honourable Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak on this matter of public importance: regional jobs. I think it is easy for us to focus on cities because it is where the majority of people live and it is where we spend a lot of our time, but there are many marvellous things that happen in our regions and there are people who are worthy of our attention and of our time and our consideration. Thank you for this MPI giving us an opportunity to talk about that. Often in our regional areas there are people who are experiencing disadvantage sometimes due to distance, but often due to living in socio-economic circumstances that are different and often they have access to less resources than we have in the cities.
I want to highlight a couple of things in this session. We have talked in this MPI already about the situation at Liberty Bell Bay and the importance of Liberty Bell Bay for the regional jobs in Bass. I want to highlight that on 6 March I wrote on behalf of the Greens to the Premier and asked him what he was doing, if he was aware of the situation at Liberty Bell Bay, and what action he had taken to speak up for the people of Bass and to find out what was happening and what the risks were to the Liberty Bell Bay. I have not received an answer to that letter still. It calls into question for us as the Greens what commitment the Premier and this government have to people living in Bass and to the jobs in that region. I know that the Premier has now shared the information about what he has done on this situation and the action that he is taking, but to have an outstanding letter from 6 March is very disappointing.
The other thing that I would like to speak about in relation to regional jobs is the biggest assets that we have in Tasmania, which are our incredible wilderness areas. We have some amazingly beautiful places, which are world-renowned and people come from all over Australia, they come from all over the world, to see our beautiful places in Tasmania. They are a source of jobs within our state.
Tourism relies on our beautiful wilderness places and protecting them, However, instead of protecting those places, valuing them and talking them up and really putting in the work to make sure our beautiful wilderness places are healthy and worthy of travelling from other parts of the world to visit, this government is set on destroying those places.
They have said that they are going to wind back the protections that were in place on forests in various areas around the state, including quite a number of coops in Bass where I live. They are going to wind back the protections, chop those forests down, and leave areas a wasteland. We know that people come to see our forests. We know that people in communities like Lilydale and Golconda and areas around there, rely on the health of those forests, not only for their own health but to draw people to that region.
If we are going to talk about regional jobs, then we need to talk about taking seriously our responsibility to care for our state, to look after the precious resources that we have in the wilderness and the environment, and to make sure that we are not destroying them. They have a value and worth of their own and should be protected, but also we need them as a state and certainly our regional areas need them.
I highlight a brilliant example of something that happened in the state and a regional area, which was Derby. Derby was a part of Tasmania that was struggling. It was a community that was not doing well. A lot of people like to say we cannot turn things around and create jobs in regional areas; that we cannot transform our regional communities. However, in Derby we have an example where that did happen, where people had a vision for tourism to bring tourists into the area and now we have a thriving community there, a busy place. It is an example of what can be done when we value tourism and when we value places and think of them differently.
The Greens encourage the government to get out of their little boxes of how they think about regional jobs and think of the big picture and do more to be supporting our regional areas.
