Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have seen this week is something that the coalition government said they would never do. We have seen the tearing down of a first-term Prime Minister. In my home state of Tasmania, we have people questioning what this might actually mean. While there is some relief that they are finally rid of the member for Warringah, they are concerned that it will mean no change to the cuts that Tasmania has been subjected to under the coalition government.

We had our Premier, Will Hodgman, a Liberal Premier, call on the former Prime Minister for the return of $2.1 billion in cuts to health and education in the state of Tasmania. More than $680 million was cut from schools, and more than $1.1 billion was cut from hospitals and health. We have seen a cut of over $100 million to the Midland Highway upgrade. The Liberal government promised that they would duplicate the road, and they have now admitted that that will not occur. We have had a cut of $120 million to freight rail. We have had financial assistance grants cuts to local government of more than $18 million. We have got the proposed cuts to family payments, which will impact hard on Tasmanians, and the proposed cuts to Paid Parental Leave. We have seen already the cuts for some part-pensioners, and the government still seems inclined to support $100,000 degrees. Indeed, the new Prime Minister said just this week:

The reality … is that we support all of our policies and all of our measures.

That is very concerning for the people in Tasmania.

The people in Tasmania are concerned about the rollout of the NBN. Tasmania was supposed to be connected first and get first-mover advantage. The rollout in Tasmania has been delayed by more than 12 months in terms of where it would be up to had Labor remained in office. He promised faster rollout of the NBN, at a lower cost, and that will not be delivered. But really concerning for Tasmanians is an editorial today in one of the Murdoch papers in Tasmania, which says that Tasmania's best interests would be in a change in climate and renewable energy policy, because that would have huge economic ramifications for Tasmania:

Mr Turnbull did not mention climate change, asylum seekers or marriage equality—not a word. Yet these are the three policy issues that most Australians would probably identify as those which distinguish Turnbull from his predecessor.

Yet we saw yesterday that the new Prime Minister is going to be the same as the old Prime Minister on these policies, so there actually will be no change in policies. So we still have the same Liberal government impacting on cuts and policies in Tasmania that Tasmanians do not agree with. We still have Tasmanians concerned about the impact that the Liberal government will have on the Tasmanian economy. The changes that the Tasmanian economy needs are clearly not going to be forthcoming from the Liberal government. If people want change, they need to vote Labor.