Our copycat Opposition

ABC pic

TASMANIA’S Liberal Opposition has been caught plagiarising slabs of a Victorian Government strategy and incorporating them into their own policy documents, Greens MP Tim Morris says.

Mr Morris said yesterday the Opposition had lifted key parts of an Independent Review of State Finances conducted last year for the Victorian Government.

The theft was first spotted by political pundit John Lawrence on the Tasmanian Times website: John Lawrence: Plagiarism and the grand hoax

Mr Morris said the Liberals had recycled the principles in this year’s Budget reply as well.

“I would call it plagiarism,” he saide.

“They’ve copied the sentences, they’ve changed some of the words, but it’s even in the same order.

“It’s not that complicated that you have to go and pinch it from someone else. If they can’t be trusted to do this sort of work themselves, they can’t be trusted with the treasury portfolio.

“I think they’ve got a serious credibility issue.”

…

But Opposition Leader Will Hodgman said Mr Morris was not paying attention to the Liberals’ policy announcements.

“In our Alternative Budget last year, I specifically said that we believed the proposed Victorian fiscal strategy should be adopted in Tasmania,” he said.

“In June last year we made it our policy to implement that fiscal strategy if elected.”

Full Mercury story here

• Tim Morris …

The Tasmanian Greens today said that the State Liberals are guilty of plagiarising a draft financial strategy paper written for the Victorian Government last year and passing it off as their own work.
Greens Treasury spokesperson Tim Morris MP said the Liberals’ so-called ‘Fiscal Strategy for the Future’ was more like a rip-off from the past.

“The Liberals’ so-called fiscal strategy is nothing more than an application to merge with Victoria,” said Mr Morris.

“The Liberals’ fiscal strategy boils down to a cut-and-paste job from Victoria’s draft Independent Review of State Finances Interim Report, and credit to John Lawrence ( TT: Plagiarism and the grand hoax ) for his outstanding detective work.”

“When I dug deeper, my jaw hit the floor.”

“Will Hodgman admitted that he had had ‘a briefing’ from the Victorian Government, but said nothing further and has definitely not admitted that so much of the Victorian Government’s work has been pinched by him.”

“Even worse, in the Liberals’ so-called Alternative Budget, the Liberals’ financial strategy from last year is identical to the Liberals’ financial strategy this year, but with just the section mentioning ‘a briefing’ from some Victorian Treasury officials removed!”

“But it gets worse for the Liberals. Two of the three authors of the Victorian draft economic paper are Michael Vertigan and Don Challen. They are the former respective heads of Tasmania’s State Treasury department and the architects of Tasmania’s economic landscape for about the last 20 years.”

“The Liberals are effectively using the work of Mr Challen et al to criticise the very economic policies he has been responsible for creating and implementing over the past decade.”

“The amount Will Hodgman evidently cares about Tasmania’s economic future can be measured in a few clicks of a mouse.”

“Worse still, Mr Hodgman has tried to deceive Tasmanians by not crediting any of the material they have lifted.”

“You would have thought the country’s longest-serving Opposition leader to have had enough time on his hands to develop a half-convincing fiscal strategy. But, like the rest of the Liberals’ policies, the substance drops off when you look behind the veneer.”

“There are two clear implications from the Liberals plagiarised fiscal strategy: First, they don’t understand what a fiscal strategy is or don’t care. Second, they have absolutely no intention of abiding by it anyway if they ever happened to have government fall into their laps.”

“It is simply unethical of the Liberals to pass off other people’s work as their own. Any pretence of the Liberals have any economic credibility left has now gone,” said Mr Morris.