Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - Mr Speaker, what a disgraceful display. What a sort of faux-concern from the minister for Police. What a shameful low bar in Tasmanian politics, not just from him, but also from the Labor Party. This is supposed to be about integrity and it feels, to me, like we have electioneering on display. We are in a desperate situation with housing and a cost of living crisis. People cannot afford to pay the rents, they cannot afford to pay their electricity bills, they cannot afford to put fuel in the car, they cannot leave their rural areas because there are no bus services to get them to the main cities, and they cannot get into the hospital when they need it.
At the same time, we have climate change going to the next level, we have a serious threat with this summer's bushfire season and we had the Police, Fire and Emergency minister standing here wasting his time in parliament when he could be talking about the serious portfolio issues that he oversees. Slinging mud at Dr Broad is so insincere. It is just a game to these parties and they do not recognise that all of this stuff about what is happening and what was said are important matters. They are not a joke. They are important and serious issues of integrity.
Let us talk about what integrity means. Integrity means being open and honest with Tasmanians about the actions that are being taken on the commission of inquiry response.
What we have is a Premier who promised 18 months ago that his leadership was going to bring in a new era of transparency. It was our hope that when Mr Rockliff became the Premier of Tasmania, he would have the courage to go with the heart he obviously has, and bring on a culture of transparency and openness because it can only start with the human at the top. It was his opportunity to have a proper reset. What we have ended up with it is obvious for everyone to see is business as usual but worse. It is worse under Jeremy Rockliff as Premier because he cannot make anything happen so he cannot force his ministers to do their job.
He cannot force the minister for children and young people to actually do the job of closing Ashley Youth Detention Centre. We had to sit here - I cannot imagine what it would have been like for him. He should feel ashamed of having heard Roger Jaensch, the so-called minister for children and young people, stand there and essentially denigrate the findings of the commission of inquiry. He effectively poured scorn on them by his comments. He was disassembling and pulling them apart and doing anything but accept the words at face value. He was trying to undermine the work of the commission of inquiry.
He effectively called into question the findings that are there in black and white, absolutely stark findings that children and young people at Ashley Youth Detention Centre today, current, real time, not just historical, are at a live and current risk of harm, live and current risk of child sexual abuse - not just any harm but child sexual abuse. It is there in the report in the first volume of the commission of inquiry's findings. They have said it and the minister refused to accept their words.
So that is the Premier who is taking charge of Tasmania, the premier who is incapable of dealing with a minister. The core job that Jeremy Rockliff committed himself to doing was to work to implement every single one of the 191 recommendations. The reason the commission of inquiry finished its job early, they said, was because of the urgency of closing Ashley, and he has a minister who today, by his own words, is disputing the findings of the commission of inquiry, undermining them and does not accept them.
That is where we are. You can talk a lot about transparency and integrity but if you cannot have meaningful action by calling your ministers to heel and forcing them to do the work you have committed to Tasmanians you will do, it means nothing.
We should have a government that is committed to active disclosure of information, but we have a government that thrives on secrecy. We should have a government that is pushing upstairs to bring on the elections reform bill, but instead they are stalling it on purpose, doing what they can to effectively make sure it will not get passed in time for the next election. They do not want it to be changed. They know there is a high likelihood it will be amended upstairs, so the Liberal Government is using the Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council to make sure it is not on the books listed as a first order of business for debate, so it will not be completed and therefore it will not come down here to be passed with the amendments that are likely going to come in place before the next election - and they are doing it very effectively. That is how the Liberals are using their power in the other place. They will make sure that we do not get the reforms they committed to bringing in.
Jeremy Rockliff is in charge. He can call the shots. He can demand it be listed as an order of business. That is his job as Premier, to actually make words mean something. When he has made a commitment, that is what he should do.
