Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, I recognise we meet in this 52nd Parliament on the land of the Muwinina people who didn’t survive the violence of colonisation. I recognise that Lutruwita and this island’s forests, coastlines, and waters are Palawa land. On behalf of the Greens, I want to use this first opportunity in parliament to commit to fighting to reform the Aboriginal Heritage Act to return lands, to protect cultural landscapes like Takayna, and for truth-telling and treaty.
The Greens campaigned in this election to stop the stadium and to spend our precious limited resources on health and housing priorities instead, and to protect our marine environment and native forests. We returned all five MPs and the Greens vote once again increased. At the same time, progressive independents were also returned or elected anew. Neither major party in this case received an increase in seats.
The Greens have already made it clear to the people of Tasmania what our intentions are in this debate today. We owe it to the people who place their trust in us, and to the parliament, to explain why we cannot support this motion of confidence in Labor.
Over the last two weeks we’ve met with Labor multiple times and had many phone conversations about working together to provide them confidence to form government. We were clear about policy compromises and outcomes that we would need. We made it clear from the very beginning, and repeatedly at every opportunity afterwards, that the Greens expect some movement on the issues that we campaigned on. Business as usual under the Liberal and Labor parties is failing this state. However, Mr Winter showed no capacity or intention to negotiate in good faith with the Greens or to make policy compromises.
Over the last five days there have been formal and informal conversations and letter exchanges between the Greens and other crossbench MPs with Mr Winter and with other members of Labor caucus.
The SPEAKER – I will allow that, but we will say ‘honourable Leader of the Opposition, Mr Winter’, so that we use the correct forms of address inside the House.
Dr WOODRUFF – Thank you. Labor’s final position on their policies was communicated by letter on Sunday, where they confirmed their refusal to consider policy compromises on the key issues the Greens were elected to fight for – to stop the stadium, to prioritise our spending on health and housing and protect the marine environment and forests. These are the issues our voters put their faith in us to be their voice in parliament on.
Honourable Speaker, we were not going to fail those people at the first hurdle. The honourable Leader of the Opposition and his party only secured 25 per cent of the vote. It’s undemocratic and unrealistic for him to imagine he could then get things 100 per cent of his own way to be premier in his own right with 10 votes out of 18 and to control all policy on that basis. That’s not the basis of a good-faith, open approach to minority government and Labor, under the honourable Dean Winter, is not currently serious about government.
The honourable Dean Winter forced the election when he refused to talk to the Greens about taking on government at the end of the last term. As a result of the election and on the raw numbers, he lost support. Labor was returned with 3 per cent less support than they had before the election, their lowest statewide vote in over 120 years, so clearly the honourable Opposition Leader’s policy platform is not something the majority of Tasmanian supported.
The Greens and the rest of the crossbench also got 25 per cent of the vote between us. If Labor wanted to be in government, they needed to recognise that the Tasmanians we represent deserve to have their views heard, which is why we worked so hard over the last couple of weeks to negotiate an outcome with Labor on key policies.
The Governor has recognised the Liberals are the incumbent government and they are now sworn in. If Labor wanted to be the government, they needed to demonstrate to the Greens why it would be worthwhile for us to support them for four years and to replace an existing government, but it appears today that perhaps nobody has been persuaded that Labor can do a better job – and we’ll find out.
We were expected to trust Labor to make potential changes to policy through a miasma of parliamentary processes over the next four years, instead of providing upfront commitments to us about the changes they would make. Why would we trust them? Why would we support people who have been contemptuous not only of the Greens but of the people who voted for us and the issues they’re concerned about that we represent? How can we support Labor when they haven’t set out a policy platform that’s different from the Liberals on the key issues we campaigned to change?
Instead, Labor is busy trying to outdo the Liberals on environmental exploitation. They want to exempt a whole range of developments and industries from federal environmental law assessments. Their policy promise was effectively to weaken Tasmania’s environmental protections even further. They’ve refused to consider even a moratorium on fish farm expansions, order countenance a whole range of other marine environment protections, not to mention those for our terrestrial environment.
Last week they locked in not only behind the brutal cruelty of the greyhound racing industry, but the continuation of its public funding. They’ve consistently supported the Liberals children-harming tough-on-crime agenda, including calling for more tough-on-crime policies, and of course most shamefully, last term we saw them crab-walk away from their longstanding and proud opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, despite opposition from family violence support services and the Women’s Legal Service.
Labor has been strategically quiet on the pokies mandatory precommitment cards, choosing when asked to echo the Tasmanian Hospitality Association’s THA’s calls for facial recognition technology, and they backflipped on anti-protest laws and supported increased penalties and prison terms for defenders of this island’s wilderness. They back in jailing the brave people who put themselves on the frontline to protect nature.
The honourable Leader of the Opposition, Mr Winter, has claimed Labor has a mandate to form government because Tasmanians increased the vote for a majority progressive parliament, but how is any of that progressive? I agree that Tasmanians want a more progressive parliament and that was reflected in the increase in vote to the Greens and a big increase in progressive Independents who are sitting in the Chamber with us today.
Sadly, the honourable Mr Winter failed to convince the Greens that his government would be a progressive government – and that he was personally willing to change to lead one ‑ or that he would come to the table to talk about real outcomes for the people who elected a progressive crossbench. This is why we can’t have confidence in the honourable Mr Winter’s Labor.
In truth, the honourable opposition leader is from the conservative faction of the Labor Party. When he took the leadership from the former opposition leader, Rebecca White, after last year’s election, his first order of business was to walk away from many of the progressive policies that Labor had under Rebecca White. I can’t recall a single Liberal government bill that Labor voted against in the last term of parliament. It says a lot, that a so-called progressive Labor opposition didn’t oppose any of the legislative agenda of a so-called conservative government.
On the big issue of budget repair, which is critical to safeguarding essential public services and which the honourable Mr Winter talked about in his speech, Labor has nothing to offer. They continue to blindly back building a billion-dollar stadium the state doesn’t need and clearly can’t afford.
The Greens and members of the crossbench had a budget briefing two weeks ago. It was a horror show. According to Treasury, Tasmania has now fallen off the fiscal cliff. We’re in freefall and we’re paying interest on our interest to service our existing debt level.
The crossbench repeatedly over the last week encouraged the honourable Mr Winter to get this same briefing from Treasury to understand exactly why we cannot justify another $2 billion of stadium debt going onto the Tasmanian balance sheet. He was stubbornly resistant.
During the election, the Greens and Liberals both provided Treasury with our separate fiscal strategy frameworks that met the clear requirements of the Charter of Budget Responsibility Act 2007. Labor released a fiscal strategy that did not comply with this act.
Labor says they oppose the Liberals’ DOGE-style Efficiency and Productivity Unit, but embedded in their election budget plan is a virtually identical unit. One of their budget savings is to redirect the waste levy revenue that is collected by councils and put it into government general revenue, which is not lawful. It is money required to be spent by the Waste and Resource Recovery Board.
Their plan also predicts massive special dividends from MAIB, which is highly irresponsible and would almost certainly increase premiums for Tasmanians in a cost-of-living crisis. Labor’s budget repair ideas include re‑allocating the specific purpose payments provided to Tasmania from the Commonwealth, which is actually not possible as these grants are tied to a specific project and can’t just be used for something else.
In short, the budget plan Labor released last month was a charade. It shows gross incompetence in understanding basic fiscal details like specific purpose payments, dividends and hypothecated revenue. The honourable Mr Winter and the Labor caucus expect us to have confidence and support for them in government on the basis of nothing. No compromise on policy; no budging on any of their positions on the stadium, on environment, on animal welfare, or on anything else for that matter.
The Greens want to work with the parliament to get the best outcomes for Tasmania, and I want to assure all Tasmanians we tried really hard to work with Labor. We tried to negotiate constructively and extensively with the Labor leader in an attempt to form a workable government. It wasn’t easy. It’s deeply disappointing and frustrating that we’ve come to this point.
I’ve talked about trust today. What Labor asked us many times over the last fortnight was ‘How could we trust the Liberals?’ To be clear with Tasmanians, we don’t trust the Liberals. Ultimately the Greens have decided that we do not have confidence in either the Liberal or Labor parties, and our vote today will reflect that. Voting against this no confidence motion in the Liberals does not mean we are providing confidence in this government.
Dr Broad – Yes it does.
The SPEAKER – Order.
Dr WOODRUFF – Every day in this parliament, the honourable Premier Jeremy Rockliff has only 14 votes in this House. Every day, he needs four other people to pass legislation and to give him confidence. He will need to work to earn that, and we Greens will work from the crossbench across the Parliament to get outcomes on the reforms we promised people we’d fight to deliver. So far, Premier Rockliff has made several announcements on policy shifts on banning greyhound racing, a moratorium on salmon farm expansions, a properly independent Environment Protection Authority (EPA), a complete overhaul of marine environment laws to strengthen environmental protections, and a reversal of their planned logging of 40 000 hectares of high conservation value forests. On the face of it, these are significant changes of direction on the issues that the Greens have long campaigned for. It appears as though Premier Rockliff understands the minority parliament his government is working within and the need to compromise.
Of course, the Greens are, understandably, cautious and sceptical. The proof is, as they say, ‘In the pudding.’ We will be calling for concrete timelines from the Premier, for short‑term legislative and regulatory actions on the announcements he has made, and to clarify some of the vague and empty language he’s used about a pause on the so-called spatial expansion of salmon farms.
In this minority parliament dynamic, goodwill and trust are critical to maintaining a functioning parliament and, ultimately, stability. Trust needs to be earned. The Greens have heard the community’s very strong desire to have a stable parliament that runs for the full term. Being able to have a frank discussion about where you agree, where you disagree, and how to find common ground and compromise is critical. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any indication from the Leader of the Opposition that he’s able or prepared to do that.
This is the third time in recent years Labor has walked away from the opportunity to get the Greens’ support to form government. Last year, Rebecca White opened the door to minority government and was immediately removed by her party’s leadership. Three months ago, after the no confidence that the honourable Leader of the Opposition moved in Jeremy Rockliff, the Greens offered to talk about conditions under which we could provide confidence with Labor to avoid the election we just had, but the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Winter, refused.
Since 19 July, the Leader of the Opposition has refused to ‘do a deal’ or make any compromise at all on any of the issues we have discussed, even though he needs the support of eight crossbench members to govern. He asked the Greens to trust him and take on faith that we can resolve the differences down the line. If he won’t do that before a government is sworn in, how could we have confidence that there would be any serious action or outcomes after his government was sworn in? We simply could not.
Labor has to decide: do they want to be a party of government? Given Tasmanians are likely to return minority governments into the future, are Labor prepared to change their approach and to be collaborative? If not, they will remain in opposition and that’s their decision to make. As the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, I make a commitment that our door is always open to collaborate and work with every member in this chamber and that is our intention in this parliament. One of the most positive parts of the past few weeks ‑ which, for several people in this chamber, was a tumultuous time and a lot of work ‑ has been the opportunity, in this minority parliament, to work very closely and get to know members of the progressive crossbench.
It has been a great opportunity for us to test out methods of working together, to build shared goals for the sort of functional and more democratic parliament that we all want to create. It’s given me and the Greens a great hope for the future. The progressive crossbench shares a conviction in transparency and the public’s right to freely access information about the decisions of governments and to reform the Integrity Commission; to repair the budget and invest in services that people need; and, of course, to protect this island’s unique and precious environment.
Tasmanians are watching us today, and I think a lot of Australians are too. On behalf of the Greens, I can assure Tasmanians who voted for us that we will continue to work collaboratively from the crossbench to maintain a stable and functional minority parliament. We will put forward strong legislation. We will always speak truth to power.
We won’t stop holding this government, any government, to account, and it’s in our DNA to always fight for this island Lutruwita/Tasmania and its people.
