Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I thank the opposition for bringing on this matter of public importance. It is plain to see, through the debate across the course of the day today, that we have lost trust in government and we believe we share that with the Tasmanian public. We have seen in the last few days the latest polling shows a significant dip in public support for the government. There is a myriad of reasons as to why that is. I will go through some of them, but it looks like the polls are dipping on the government and the sun is setting.
When it comes to trust, I think there is no greater issue that affects people’s trust in government and politics more broadly than political donations. We Greens have been strong advocates for reform in the space of political donations in regards to bringing in truth in political advertising, in terms of expenditure caps and mechanisms to ensure that big money does not have an undue influence over our politics and influence over the outcome in elections. It is still a significant source of concern for the Tasmanian people that we have weak donation laws and that is still unfinished business when it comes to the work of this House and we hope that that can get resolved as a matter of urgency.
We have heard over the course of the debate today by various members on the government’s side talk about what the public does not like and what they believe the public does not like about the conduct of the House here. We all know and we can agree that the public does not like deception. It does not like politicians not keeping their word. It does not like policy failure and non-delivery of promises. That is where I think the trust that we have lost in this government significantly stems from. We have just had hours of debate when it comes to pokies and pokies reform and policy backflip when it comes to pre-commitment cards despite repeated statements and assurances that it would be delivered. We can sort of pick other issues along the way as well making sure that they are seen in a similar light and the stadium at Macquarie Point is exactly one of those.
We had the Premier as recently as August 2022 still making the statement that is actually still on the AFL’s website, that the stadium will not be part of Tasmania’s bid. Of course it was. Of course we signed a deal with the AFL that had the stadium front and centre in that deal. We signed up to every single dollar of cost overrun that will come and it is clearly a spectacular dud deal. The RSL has been completely clear on the lack of trust that it has with the government, feeling as if it has been misled and deceived, I think the words were, by the government, by the Macquarie Point Development Corporation on behalf of the government and by the architects who are working on the stadium project. I mean that is a significant indictment on this government to have an institution as significant as RSL Tasmania articulating a lack of faith in the government and the fact it feels misled and deceived.
We have seen the situation over the last few weeks play out where TasNetworks, without even informing its relevant minister, looking like it is going out to tender to contract out its work to a single tier one corporate entity or commercial entity. It is a significant problem. It tries to fly in the face of the GBE and state-owned company review, and we called consistently for the minister to step in and intervene. To his credit, today we learned that perhaps he has, and that contract has been paused and it is that kind of action, I guess, I want to leave on in a positive note. That is the kind of action that will restore trust in government when there is a problem that has been identified, when it has been called out loudly and significantly by stakeholders and by members of this place and they actually take action. It is very welcome. The next step now is for that minister to ensure that there is no privatisation direction by TasNetworks and its workforce is secure.
