Thursday 21 March 2019 The Speaker, Sue Hickey, took the Chair at 10 a.m., acknowledged the Traditional People, and read Prayers. RECOGNITION OF VISITORS Madam SPEAKER - Honourable members, I welcome the legal studies students from St Mary's College. Welcome to Parliament. Members - Hear, hear. STATEMENT BY SPEAKER Employee Assistance Program Madam SPEAKER - Honourable members, in early March I spoke with the Clerk of the House about extending the existing employee assistance program covering parliamentary officers to all members of this parliament. Such employee assistance programs apply throughout the State Service. That means to all servants of the public. I am pleased to advise that such an extension has been enabled by way of an extension of our existing contract with Converge International. This program will remain strictly confidential and is designed to enhance the emotional, mental and general physiological wellbeing of parliamentary employees, and now members, and includes services for immediate family members. The aim of the program is to provide preventative and proactive interventions for the early detection, identification and/or resolution of both work and personal problems that may adversely affect performance and wellbeing. The service is available 24 hours a day seven days a week to facilitate inquiries. Booking requests can provide assistance in crisis situations. I hope that is to the satisfaction of the House. We thank the Clerk, even though he does not wish to be thanked. Members - Hear, hear. STATEMENT BY PREMIER Government Members - Responsibilities Mr HODGMAN (Franklin - Premier) - Madam Speaker, I inform the House of some matters that pertain to question time today, but also Government responsibilities. 1 21 March 2019 First, Mr Jaensch is absent today and is on a pair. I will take any questions in relation to his portfolio. Also, I want to inform the House of changes in response to the new members being sworn into this place. I have this week appointed Mark Shelton as parliamentary secretary to the Premier. I have appointed returning member for Braddon, Mrs Rylah, as the new parliamentary secretary for regional affairs, reporting to the Deputy Premier. Mrs Rylah will also serve as Government Whip in the other place. I have appointed the member for Prosser, Jane Howlett, as Deputy Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council. I look forward to their contributions to our strong majority Liberal Government team. QUESTIONS Health Workers - Proposed Industrial Action Ms WHITE question to PREMIER, Mr HODGMAN [10.07 a.m.] This morning your Government escalated your hostile threats to bully and intimidate nurses at the Mersey Community Hospital, to stand them down without pay for taking part in planned industrial action. Is it not a fact that as we stand here now you have a letter signed ready to go to nurses at the Mersey telling them they will be stood down and their pay will be docked? It has come to this unprecedented action only because you and your Government have not attempted to act fairly and negotiate, in good faith, a reasonable pay increase for public sector workers. Will you confirm that your Government continues to keep the threat of standing down nurses on the table? ANSWER Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to talk about not only what we are hoping to achieve by way of very good faith negotiations and discussions that have to this point been quite constructive, as union leaders have acknowledged. It strikes the right balance with what we are proposing, by way of a revised upwards pay offer, which will actually pay our public servants more, improve terms and conditions, productivity and efficiency, and most importantly give us the ability to put more public servants into essential services for Tasmanians. We have committed to do this and make sure that our wages policy and our budget remains strong and sustainable. We have been negotiating in very good faith with union leaders. We want that to continue. We want them to take our offer to their members, those hard-working public servants who we value. 2 21 March 2019 Take the offers to them for a pay rise and for improved terms and conditions. Explain again, I hope they have already, but please explain what we are endeavouring to do by way of an increase in putting more teachers, nurses, police officers and more essential public servants delivering the services Tasmanians need and deserve. That is exactly what we are endeavouring to achieve. Any time the health, safety and welfare of Tasmanians is put at risk by industrial action, activated by union leaders, then we will take advice and consider any options to avert that happening. Our concern here is to ensure that Tasmanians are getting the essential services they need. Union leaders might have the right to activate industrial action, but Tasmanians have the right to expect essential services: to be able to get their surgery, to be able to get on a bus, to be able to live their lives without being hindered by industrial action when we have a strong and improved offer on the table. That will be our priority but it will not prevent us from considering what we need to do to ensure that will happen and to talk with union leaders, as we have done. Whilst it has been claimed this sort of action is entirely unprecedented, it was not that long ago a former Labor-Greens minister, in a government in which the Leader of the Opposition was a part, was talking about standing down staff at Risdon Prison. Mr Nick McKim said - While people are refusing to carry to out and obey lawful and reasonable instruction from prison management it is very difficult or impossible to run a prison properly. That was the view of, then minister, Mr Nick McKim in a Labor-Greens government. It is not unprecedented, as Labor are suggesting. Union leaders have activated industrial action and there are other political forces at play. We have Legislative Council and federal elections coming up. The Opposition is happy to play politics. They have made their priorities clear and have explicitly said they are happy for patients to be put at risk and for services to be disrupted. Members interjecting. Mr HODGMAN - You have been the cheer squad for union leaders over the last few months, even when certain actions were proposed that could put motorists and people on our roads at risk. You should be called out on that. As well as that you do not even have a wages policy of your own. The Treasurer and I look forward to meeting with union leaders again soon to continue discussions of a positive way forward. I hope it is done on the basis of the best interests of Tasmanians; giving Tasmanians the services we promised at the election and that they deserve, and ensuring their lives and livelihoods are not disrupted by industrial action. Health Workers - Proposed Industrial Action Ms WHITE question to PREMIER, Mr HODGMAN [10.12 a.m.] Your Government's unfair and incompetent efforts in wage negotiations with nurses, health workers and thousands of other public sector workers has resulted in a threat of standing down 3 21 March 2019 nurses escalating today. It has been escalating toward this position over the past nine months but has become worse since you inserted yourself in the negotiations in January. Your Minister for Health went rogue last week when he bullied nurses and other health workers on live radio and in a press release, where he issued hostile threats they would be stood down and their pay docked. Do you, as you said yesterday, continue to back the actions of your Minister for Health and the extreme stand down action he and your Government threatened to take today, or are you finally going to show some leadership and step in to fix the mess? ANSWER Madam Speaker, what is worse about our proposed revised wage offer, which would increase the wages of public servants? A number of initiatives the Treasurer and I have outlined, about which we have had positive and constructive conversations with union leaders and which they have acknowledged, are toward improving productivity and efficiency in the State Service, employing those hundreds of nurses and medical professionals, teachers and frontline staff, which we have committed to. It is an improved offer we would urge union leaders to come back and talk about. We would love them to present a counter offer. It is not acceptable for them to simply raise their demands and not come back with a responsible and realistic offer that meets us at least halfway. That is what we are proposing. Did the Leader of the Opposition condone the comments of the then minister for prisons, Nick McKim? You did not say anything about it. The Leader of the Opposition talks about strength and leadership and was not prepared to not condone that action taken by her former colleague. It highlights the hypocrisy of this stand-for-nothing Labor Party. The Leader of the Greens aptly said it yesterday; you know what the Liberal Party stand for and the Greens do not agree with a lot of it, but after two years of Ms White being Opposition Leader no-one knows what you stand for. Electoral Donations Disclosure Framework Ms O'CONNOR question to PREMIER, Mr HODGMAN [10.15 a.m.] Tasmanians know that your 2018 election campaign was bankrolled by the gambling industry to the tune of many millions of dollars. Neither you, nor the Liberal State Director, have ever been upfront with the people about how much you took from vested interests and - because we have the weakest donation laws in the country - we will never know the price of your collective soul.