Ms BADGER (Lyons) – What a curious time when we have to come up here and help explain to the Treasurer how the Budget Estimates process actually works. We had 20 minutes initially on the interim draft budget before us. Then we do go into Estimates, and you will have plenty of questions on the entire contents of that budget, which has an awful lot in it, including cuts to other services, as well as the stadium, and that is the point that Tasmanians are trying to make. That is what should be on the record, that we have to try and get on the record.
Twenty minutes is what we agreed to in the standing orders, regularly. That’s what we’d come up here and speak to on a normal bill. What happens, for everybody in the public gallery and watching online, is that then we have a vote, and its normally convention that we vote yes, that then we go into committee. What is happening here with the orders is the opposite. It’s back-to-front in terms of how it’s been put because of the abnormal process.
We don’t have the opportunity to go into committee. We have lost that opportunity for scrutiny. Therefore, here, what we can do is have the additional time for what is an enormous project for Tasmania we’re asking for 40 minutes per member if they choose to take it, to put the record of their constituents and Tasmanians on the record, for a project whose implications are going to be for generations to come. It’s 40 minutes. Why wouldn’t you vote for it? Award the Tasmanian people here today, and coming forward, that level of respect.
This is a huge order with so much in it. How are we supposed to put everything adequately on the record? Not just how Tasmanians personally feel concerned; questions that they might have that they’re no longer going to get answered directly in the relevant debate, because we are not going to committee. But everything, from the Aboriginal heritage concerns, concerns of the heritage of the entire precinct that the stadium is going to impinge upon, the concerns of the RSL. What about the questions of all the Tasmanians who are concerned about the health system, education and housing?
I don’t think any of us spent the last two elections forgoing almost every conversation that we had, having the stadium brought up in it. That is the level of concern and confusion of Tasmanians from both sides. It doesn’t matter which way you were going to vote on this; it is important to the state for generations to come, and you owe it to everybody who voted for you and put you in this place, to put their concerns on the record, to justify how you are going to vote for it.
That’s the point of debate in the parliament and in the Westminster system. To say, ‘We know how you’re going to vote, so we don’t need to extend speaking time’ is to say, ‘Let’s just turn up for an hour each day and vote through every piece of legislation, we don’t need to worry about it because we know what your policies are, and therefore, how you’re probably going to vote on it.’ No, that’s not how democracy works.
The Premier came in this morning, and he was exaggerating when he said that this is the ‘most scrutinised project in the world.’ Why, then, is he diminishing the scrutiny opportunities that we actually have on this order, bearing in mind that there have been previous reports that have had to be scrutinised? There’s been the Gruen report, we’ve had Saul Eslake’s report, now we have the TPC report. We owe it to Tasmanians to actually dissect all of that. We have a government that’s just completely dismissed the recommendations from those reports, including the recommendation not to bring on this order. You should get up here for 40 minutes and justify to Tasmanians why you’re dismissing the recommendations of your own process.
Bad governments thrive in the absence of good opposition. What we have seen for too long in this place is a tiny crossbench that have held accountable the Liberal government for 11 years. Now we are bigger, and we are the true opposition. That is evident today, because we are upholding not only the rights of Tasmanians and the views of Tasmanians on this stadium, but basic levels of democracy so that we can actually have a proper debate for the time that is solicited for it.
It is 40 minutes. Bearing in mind, Mr Winter, you’ve got two positions to get up here, so maybe you’d like 20 minutes each; 20 minutes for when you actually supported the stadium, and then another 20 minutes for now that you oppose it.
This is an intergenerational asset for Tasmania, or it’s going to be an intergenerational debt. It’s going to be a huge burden. Whichever side you’re on, get up and justify it. Do the Tasmanian people here today, and into the future, justice.
