House of Assembly Thursday 18 March 2021
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PARLIAMENT OF TASMANIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY REPORT OF DEBATES Thursday 18 March 2021 REVISED EDITION Thursday 18 March 2021 The Speaker, Ms Hickey, took the Chair at 10 a.m., acknowledged the Traditional People, and read Prayers. QUESTIONS TasTAFE - Cost of Government Advertising Ms WHITE question to PREMIER, Mr GUTWEIN [10.03 a.m.] Today, as you escalated your plans to blow-up TAFE, you have used taxpayer funds to pay for full-page advertisements in the state's three major newspapers to try to sell your politically motivated attempt to destroy TAFE. This wreaks of the attack you launched on TasWater with taxpayer funds to peddle misinformation and half-truths that ultimately failed. It proved that you could not bully your way to fixing a problem. Why have you not learned from your past mistakes? You have used statements from respected peak bodies to support your war on TAFE but can you advise if they were even told about the nature of the ad before you quoted them? How much taxpayer money do you intend to spend on advertising to try and sell your war on TAFE and how many advertisements have you already booked and paid for? ANSWER Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for that question. Given the time that the Leader of the Opposition had yesterday, I was actually anticipating that she might ask me about one of their policies first up this morning, but obviously they do not have any. Mr O'Byrne - Send us an email; we will consider it and we will do it next week. Madam SPEAKER - Order, please. Mr O'Byrne. It is not your birthday today. Mr GUTWEIN - What was quite evident yesterday is it appears that the Leader of the Opposition has simply given up. The shadow treasurer was a little more nimble in his commentary yesterday, setting himself up, no doubt. The commentary from Labor about this was interesting. It gives me a great opportunity to talk about PESRAC and the very strong recommendations which we have all committed to. Ms O'BYRNE - Point of order, Madam Speaker, on relevance. The question was very specific. It was the amount of money - taxpayers' dollars - that this Government is spending. Madam SPEAKER - Unfortunately, that is not a point of order. Thank you. Mr GUTWEIN - It surprises me that they would so quickly jump - 1 Thursday 18 March 2021 The point I was going to make is, in terms of PESRAC, I made it very clear on Tuesday that this Government is going to secure Tasmania's future. We are going to secure Tasmania's future and we have accepted all 52 recommendations of PESRAC. The lack of commentary by the Leader of the Opposition regarding the PESRAC report yesterday was interesting. Members interjecting. Madam SPEAKER - Order. This is unruly right from the word go. You are making the Premier yell. Mr GUTWEIN - The point I was making is that the complete absence of any commitment to any of PESRAC recommendations yesterday - not even one on that side of the House - Mr O'Byrne interjecting. Madam SPEAKER - Order, Mr O'Byrne. Mr GUTWEIN - Our policy is to ensure that TAFE is nimble, that TAFE can meet the needs of young Tasmanians and Tasmanians in regional areas, that TAFE can provide jobs for young Tasmanians. I make no apology for letting Tasmanians know about that policy; a policy that is going to ensure - Ms WHITE - Point of order, Madam Speaker. It goes to standing order 45 on relevance. The question was specifically about how much taxpayer money has been spent on this campaign. If the Premier cannot answer, he should sit down. Madam SPEAKER - I point out that, given the traditions of this House, I am not able to put words into the Premier's mouth. I draw his attention to the question but I cannot put words in his mouth. Please proceed, Premier. Mr GUTWEIN - Regarding the question that was asked, it was much broader than just that particular issue and anyone reading Hansard would draw that same conclusion. We make no apologies for letting Tasmanians know that we have a policy that is going to provide jobs for young Tasmanians, is going to ensure that our TAFE is nimble, is more like the businesses it is there to serve, which importantly - and I would have thought on that side of the House they would support this - is going to get more young Tasmanians into tradie jobs, into traineeships, into apprenticeships and will help us secure Tasmania's future. Mr O'BYRNE - Point of order, Madam Speaker. Madam SPEAKER - Order. Goodness, I hope this is not going to be a day of points of order. Mr O'BYRNE - The question was clearly about how much taxpayers' money was he spending on advertising campaigns. 2 Thursday 18 March 2021 Madam SPEAKER - Again, that is not a point of order. I will not take another point of order on this subject. Mr GUTWEIN - Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is quite appropriate that the Government explains its policy to Tasmanians. In fact, I am reminded of the advertising that occurred under the previous Labor-Greens government, which was certainly headed up for Tasmania's forest industry, signed by Lara Giddings and Bryan Green, which led to not securing Tasmania's future but destroying Tasmania's future. It cost jobs and decimated regional communities. I will come back to the nub of this. PESRAC has brought down a series of recommendations. All 52 of them have been accepted by this side of the House and we are going to get on and implement those recommendations. The single most important recommendation that they made in terms of securing Tasmania's future is ensuring that we can put young Tasmanians and Tasmanians in regional areas into the jobs that are available. We can make certain that they are skilled up; that they are trained. Its beggars belief that that side of the House will not support it. Housing and Homelessness Ms WHITE question to PREMIER, Mr GUTWEIN [10.10 a.m.] Madam Speaker, what a terrible answer from the Premier. Your mean-spirited nature knows no bounds with your latest attack on the pay pockets of ambulance paramedics, firefighters, quarantine security guards, your plan to sack Hydro workers, and your new threat to make it harder for jobseekers to get qualifications with your plan to blow up TAFE. The uncaring 'look the other way' attitude at the core of your Government is no clearer than in housing and the homelessness crisis that you have created and failed to fix, and the desperate situation this has left thousands of Tasmanians in. Tasmanians want to know why you are so out of touch. They want to know why you have no compassion or understanding of the often-desperate situation that families are finding themselves in. They want to understand why you simply do not care what is happening in this state when almost 3600 families are on the housing waiting list and when even the most urgent of those families needing a roof over their head will have to wait a minimum of 64 weeks to be housed, on average. Can you show Tasmanians today that you have at least an understanding of the housing crisis you are overseeing, by telling us how many people on average are turned away from each of Tasmania's emergency shelters across the state each day? 3 Thursday 18 March 2021 ANSWER Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for that question, wide ranging as it was. Let me deal with a couple of things. First, I have been advised regarding ambulance staff and the challenge they have been facing in terms of past payments related to travel recovery, that no past payments will need to be recovered. We are in the process of communicating that widely to staff and working with them and so, Madam Speaker, fixed. Regarding the issue with our firefighters, I understand that 12 out of the 13 have now received their backpay. We will still seek clarity because it is important that on the point of law that we have clarity. Regarding quarantine hotels, my understanding is the deeds are currently with the hotels themselves. We are waiting on them to come back from them. I believe we have one back already but, as I have said, back payments will occur as soon as we receive those deeds. And so, one, two and three: fixed. Ms O'Byrne - You forgot about - Madam SPEAKER - Order, Ms O'Byrne. Mr GUTWEIN - I do not have that detail in the final point of the question that the member asked but I will say that, on Tuesday of this week, we released a comprehensive housing package that will put downward pressure on rents, that will enable people to put ancilliary dwellings, granny flats in their backyards, with no permit required. It will ensure that landlords are able to put downward pressure on rent because of the significant changes we have made to land tax. We will continue with our comprehensive program to put roofs over peoples' heads. However, as I have said, the only way you can deal with the demand problem is to build more houses. Last year for the 12 months we have a record level of dwelling approvals. We are doing exactly what is required and that is getting on with the job and building more houses. That side of the House cannot even make their mind up whether they will agree with anything out of the PESRAC report.