Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014. As was highlighted in the December MYEFO, Mr Deputy Speaker, if we do nothing to correct the budget mess left to us by Labor we are condemning future generations—my children, your children—to repaying the debt generated by one of the most wasteful governments in our country's history. Do nothing and we face the burden of $123 billion in accumulated deficits and debt forecast to reach a staggering $667 billion. Quite simply, we have been living beyond our means. It has been proven that Labor cannot manage money. We know that they do not understand the fundamental premise that governments spend other people's money. Taxes paid by businesses and individuals are a quantum that without the insidious burden of interest repayments is more than adequate to fund the services we rightly expect government to provide.

Of Tasmania's $5 billion annual budget, 60 per cent of the funding comes from the Commonwealth. On 15 March Tasmanians go to the polls. Shamefully, after 16 years of Labor government, and most disastrously the past four years of the Labor-Green coalition, Tasmania is broke. The damage done to my state as a result of Labor's financial mismanagement, compounded by having Greens in cabinet, is plain for all to see. Tasmania was the birthplace of Green politics in our country, and conservation indeed has its place. I acknowledge those Tasmanians who, back then, saw in the Greens something noble. But sadly for many Tasmanians sympathetic to a notion of balance, the noble roots of the Greens have rotted in a mired socialist ideology. This is now a party of protest, not of government, preying on the hearts and wallets of idealistic mainland city dwellers in need of a cause to ease their environmental conscience.

I have spoken at more length in this place about the hypocrisy that surrounded the Tasmanian forestry agreement and do not propose to elaborate further on that today. Suffice to say that under Labor-Green governments a once productive industry, so important to regional Tasmania, has been summarily dismantled and brought to its knees. Only in their wildest dreams could the Greens have imagined wielding the influence they have had in Tasmania over the past four years. Courtesy of a Labor government desperate to hold on to power, the Greens' agenda to de-industrialise Tasmania was given wings to fly. I have just come from the Forestry Industries Association dinner in the Great Hall and, as the Prime Minister just said, no-one has ever helped the environment by destroying an economy.

Premier Lara Giddings, and all her accomplices, including recently sworn-in Minister Rebecca White, the state member for Lyons, are hoping Tasmanians are suffering from amnesia. Unfortunately for Ms Giddings, but fortunately for Tasmania, every Tasmanian I speak to knows that we simply cannot afford another four years of the same sort of government. Investment in Tasmania has dried up and business confidence is at record lows. As Australia has struggled with sovereign risk issues as a result of the carbon tax and the mining tax, sapping confidence and sending investors into other jurisdictions, similarly Tasmania has been unable to attract outside investment due to the difficulty of getting things done under the current Labor-Green alliance. The state needs stability and certainty, and this will only come from a majority government, able to make decisions in the best interests of all Tasmanians. Only the Liberals can deliver this for Tasmania.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force figures for January 2014 reveal that Tasmania's unemployment rate trend figure for December and January was 7.6 per cent compared to the national average of 5.8 per cent in December. Tragically, the story for young Tasmanians looking for work is disastrous and, according to the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the youth unemployment rate in some parts of the state is as high as 20 per cent. One in five young people in my state actively looking for work are unable to find it. It is simply unacceptable. Since 2010, the number of unemployed Tasmanians has risen by nearly 25 per cent and the state's participation in work rate is at its lowest level since 2005. Nearly 10,000 fewer Tasmanians are in full-time employment and Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

What these figures do not show is the rate of underemployment, the people that want to work more hours but are unable to find the opportunity. Deloitte Access Economics said in January that recent data on Tasmania's economic health showed that there had been a slight improvement but added in its summary that 'then again, it would have been difficult for them to be worse. This state is the biggest victim of Australia's 'two speed' economy.' Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive, Michael Bailey, recently described Tasmania's parlous state when commenting on the state's mid-year economic report. The report showed that Tasmania was budgeted to end the financial year with gross debt of almost $1.2 billion. This figure only reflects core government responsibilities. If the state government's commercial activities are included, the data is even more devastating. By 30 June this year, the state is budgeted to have total gross debt of just under $3.9 billion. The Tasmanian government's own mid-year report shows that the net operating balance has deteriorated by a total of $448.5 million since the preparation of the 2013-14 budget. However, just three years ago the estimate for the 2013-14 budget was an underlying surplus of $53.4 million. How have they got it so wrong?

Remember, all of this was on the back of a deal signing up to a fiscal strategy to reduce expenditure as GST revenues collapsed under the deteriorating economic performance of the national budget, courtesy of Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and the member for Lilley. As we now know, and many understood at the time, the previous federal Labor government never had a problem with revenue, rather they had a problem with spending. And even Tasmania's Premier and Treasurer, Lara Giddings, in 2012 in the mid-year economic update said:

… there is now no more hay left in the barn.

She went on to say:

We are living beyond our means and spending must be cut in line with our reduced income so we do not go back into net debt.

So, having worked out that we were spending too much and living beyond our means, and rightly bringing down a budget showing a surplus of $53 million, what did we do? We delivered the biggest deficit in the state's history.

Since the Labor-Green government came into office in my home state, Tasmania has run the biggest deficits in the state's history, investment has dried up, Tasmania's credit rating has been downgraded, and hundreds of Tasmanians have been leaving the state to find work. Since the Labor-Green government came into office, front-line resources have been decimated, with fewer police on the beat; there has been an increase in serious crime, including armed robberies; there have been 70,000 fewer checks on speeders and drink-drivers annually; 14,000 fewer crimes have been pursued to prosecution; and fuel reduction on public land has been reduced by more than half.

Since the Labor-Green government came into office, we have become one of Australia's poorest performing states in terms of education, with over 100 teachers being sacked, a decrease in student attendance, and an increase in class sizes. Our year 10 to 12 retention rate has plummeted. There has been a drop of 78 per cent in adult education—a staggering figure. Tasmania has the lowest year 12 completion rate of any state in Australia, with only 43 per cent of young Tasmanians now completing year 12. Since the Labor-Green government came into office, education has been devastated.

Health and human services also have been slashed, with over 100 hospital beds closed. There are 1,500 fewer patients being admitted for elective surgery, and more Tasmanians are waiting over a year for surgery. Two hundred and eighty-seven nurses were sacked in a nine-month period in 2011-12. Waiting lists for people with disability have skyrocketed. The figures are due in part to additional expenditure of $57.7 million for the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement—I just can't get away from it—the irony of which is cruelly apparent to the majority of Tasmanians. Taxpayers' money is being used to shut down business and the livelihoods of good people in my electorate. It is nothing short of criminal.

Perhaps what best highlights the incompetence of this current government, though, is the unfunded superannuation liability the state has. The government has raided the kitty of previous administrations and failed to maintain the superannuation liability for the state's past and present employees. The unfunded liability now sits at $6.2 billion. Tasmanians are well over Labor and the Greens.

The task we now have is to reset the course of the state to one of growth, development and jobs. That will start with the election of a state Liberal government on 15 March, because the Tasmanian Liberals do have a plan: a plan for a strong, stable government that will get things done—a government that will make Tasmania an attractive place for economic investment and create jobs by delivering certainty and cutting the burden of red and green tape. It will get budget spending under control. We will live within our means. It will build a modern economy supported by our competitive strengths in agriculture and aquaculture, mining and forestry, tourism and the energy sector. We are blessed to have an enormous resource in hydro-electricity generation in our state and, increasingly, wind energy. We are blessed to have forests which can be exploited for energy as well. Rebuilding our essential health and police services is part of the state Liberals' plan, as is reinvesting in education again to create a job-ready generation. Extending high schools to year 11 and 12 is also part of the Liberals' plan. There is a better way, and I encourage Tasmanians to get behind the positive plan that Will Hodgman and his team have outlined over the past two years, and vote for change on Saturday, 15 March.

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