The Green vision

Nick McKim Response to: Will Hodgman’s Agenda 09, David Bartlett: The State of the State
Mr Speaker, as I rise to begin this speech, Tasmania has an opportunity that exists for no other place on the planet, and has existed at no other time in Tasmania’s history.
STATE OF THE STATE – A GREEN VISION

Delivered by Greens Leader, Nick McKim MP

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Approx 40 minutes.

Mr Speaker, as I rise to begin this speech, Tasmania has an opportunity that exists for no other place on the planet, and has existed at no other time in Tasmania’s history.

It is an opportunity that exists due to an array of global circumstances including climate change, peak oil and the current financial crisis.

These circumstances are common to every jurisdiction on the planet.

But the opportunity that exists only for Tasmania has been created by the unique combination of our incomparable natural assets, the deeply held environmental awareness of our community, the historical foundation of our economy, and the skills, talents and tolerance of our people.

It is, Mr Speaker, an opportunity whose moment in time has arrived.

It has arrived because the 21st century will be defined by the sustainability crisis facing our planet.

And because only in Tasmania do the foundations exist to put in place the ambitious program of leadership and transformation that will make us a beacon to the world in responding to the great global challenges of our time.

It is an opportunity that is so significant, so pregnant with possibility, that to fail to grasp it would constitute an historic failure of leadership, and an abrogation of responsibility to our people, and our children.

To maximise this opportunity will take leadership of a very special kind.

Leadership that has the imagination to understand the challenges of our time.

Leadership that has the vision to understand the state of the world.

Leadership that is prepared to make the sometimes difficult choices that will improve the long term wellbeing of our people.

And Leadership that has the courage to present a vision of Tasmania’s future so that Tasmania’s people, all of our people, are inspired to be part of it.

I’ve listened closely to the State of the State speeches of both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. I heard nothing of the kind of leadership that Tasmania needs in this time of unprecedented challenge, and unprecedented opportunity.

We’ve heard what Tasmania’s future would be like under the current Premier.

We’ve heard what Tasmania’s future would be like under the alternative Premier.

Now I want to tell you what Tasmania’s future would be like under a Green Premier.

A Green Premier would understand that as a world, as a nation and as a state we are living beyond our ecological limits.

And that by doing so we are ripping off future generations and squandering our children’s chances of economic, social and personal wellbeing.

A Green Premier would understand that our land is sick, and under current policy settings is getting sicker.

A Green Premier would understand that a sick land makes our people sick.

And a Green Premier would work to heal that sickness, for the health of our people and our land.

A Green Premier would understand that the melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, and of glaciers from Greenland to Patagonia, are part of the same challenge as the ever shrinking oil fields under the Arabian sands.

And a Green Premier would understand that those same challenges present unparalleled opportunities for Tasmania, and that the Tasmanian people want to be part of delivering solutions to the great global challenges of this century.

A Green Premier would understand what Albert Einstein meant when he said, ‘The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.’

A Green Premier would understand that Einstein’s words are at least as valid today as they were when he said them, and that old style political parties like Labor and Liberal are incapable of solving the crises that their policies created.

A Green Premier would understand that places that adapt early to the global sustainability challenge will inevitably be market leaders and winners. And that places that adapt slowly will be losers.

A Green Premier would understand that Tasmania has all of the tools to be an early adaptor, a market leader, in responding to the sustainability crisis.

That if we are smart enough, clever enough, strong enough, quick enough and green enough, we can not only be winners, but we can set the pace for the rest of the world.

There will be those, Mr Speaker, for whom the Greens’ vision is too large, too long term, and too ambitious. But in doing so they forget what Tasmania has already done. They deny our history, and they especially forget recent history.

Mr Speaker, in 1975 Dr Richard Jones outlined a vision for Tasmania’s future. It was entitled ‘The New Ethic’.

It was the first vision which proposed a new deal for Tasmania, a way forward into the 21st century, a way to break Tasmania’s unhealthy over-reliance on resource extraction.

It was a plan to broaden and therefore strengthen our economic base, to build greater resilience into our economy and our people.

A plan for a vibrant new economy based on tourism, creativity and innovative small business.

A plan for creating a diverse, resilient and independent economy.

This inspiration formed the basis for the United Tasmania Group, the first green political Party in the world. What a proud first that was for Tasmania.

Dr Jones’ dream became the Clean Green and Clever vision that the Greens advocated so passionately for so long, and for which we were ridiculed at every turn by our political opponents.

Of course it is now a matter of history that the rhetoric has been adopted by those very same people who ridiculed us.

Unfortunately, saying the words is a very poor substitute for taking action.

Mr Speaker, only a few days ago we saw the release of Australia’s most recent unemployment figures.

Unsurprisingly, the two states hit hardest are Western Australia and Queensland, states with the highest reliance on commodity extraction.

In just twelve months the number of jobless has soared by over 40% in Western Australia.

And in Queensland by a staggering 18.7% in just one short month.

These are the human consequences of an over-reliance in industry sectors in which Australia is a price-takers in the global markets.

We have also seen job losses in Tasmania caused by similar circumstances.

Of course mining and forestry have crucial roles to play in Tasmania’s economic and social future.

A Green Premier would work with these industries to green them up, and to export the resultant intellectual property and expertise to a world crying out for that knowledge and assistance.

But we need to insulate Tasmania against the inevitable economic shocks of the future by broadening our economic base.

We have taken the first baby steps in this direction. Envisaged, encouraged and driven at every turn by the Greens.

And despite Labor dropping the ball in the last decade by focusing too much on large resource based projects like Basslink, like woodchip exports, like the toxic pulp mill proposed for the Tamar valley, we remain well placed to move forward.

But to move forward we will need to focus on fast moving, flexible, smart, green businesses and on greening-up the resource based sectors that will continue to play a role in our social and economic future.

But above all, we will need Tasmania, and Tasmanians, to work and walk together, with a united purpose.

Mr Speaker, to make this happen, the Greens have a vision to heal our community’s wounds, and to position Tasmania as a global beacon for the next hundred years.

The hundred years that history will recall as the sustainability century.

This vision includes six major themes.

* Firstly, caring for place, and for our people.

* Secondly, building self-reliance, resilience and independence

in our communities.

* Thirdly, recognising the global sustainability imperative, and

acting on a Green economic direction and delivering Green-collar jobs.

* Fourthly, taking no backward step on the road towards 100%

renewable energy in Tasmania.

* Fifthly, healing our community by ending the resource

extraction civil war.

* And sixthly, making education our priority. That is, spending

our first dollar on our children, not our last.

Caring for our Place, and Our People

Mr Speaker, firstly, caring for our place, and our people

A Green Premier would understand that a healthy environment underpins healthy people and healthy communities, and ultimately a healthy economy for Tasmania.

A Green Premier would ensure proper environmental regulation in Tasmania, including by bringing the forest industry back under the same planning rules as other industry sectors.

And within the ambit of the Environment Protection Authority, not the self regulatory system of the Forest Practices Authority.

A Green Premier would ban the potentially carcinogenic chemicals such as Atrazine and Simazine that are currently sprayed with abandon into our ecosystems and water catchments.

A Green Premier would end the destruction of Tasmania’s last threatened high conservation value forests, reserving them and preserving their embedded carbon in the fight against climate change.

A Green Premier would deliver a strong State Coastal Policy.

One that nurtures our precious coastline, and instills in communities a greater sense of ownership of their shared natural heritage.

A Green Premier would not only move to protect the fragile coastal zone through better management, but also follow other Australian jurisdictions by banning such inappropriate developments as canal estates.

A Green Premier would commit to a comprehensive marine reserve system to protect ecosystems that will need all the buffering from climate change we can effect.

And underpin the long term health of our wild fisheries setting aside no-take zones, giving marine life and fish stocks the best chance to flourish, and improving the catch outside these reserves.

A Green Premier would engage recreational and professional fishermen in a genuine process to make sure an effective statewide MPA network protects both fisheries, and fisher folks’ livelihoods into the future.

Mr Speaker, a Green Premier would, for the first time in Tasmania’s history since the European invasion, ensure a true respect for place on our magnificent islands. A true regard for the environment that sustains us all.

And a Green Premier would care for our people.

A Green Premier would not leave society’s most vulnerable out in the cold, as have so many Labor and Liberal Tasmanian Governments in the past and to this day.

A Green Premier would put Tasmania’s disadvantaged children and families first.

By ensuring that children from broken, impoverished families would not have to compete with the gaming machines in pubs and clubs that suck the food off their tables and the warmth from their winters.

By removing poker machines out of pubs and clubs, and providing relationship and financial counselling for the victims of this government’s immoral gaming policy.

A Green Premier would make the protection of children and families an unequivocal priority, by supporting the difficult work of children and family support workers in Tasmania through offering better training, flexible and fair working arrangements, counselling and practical backup.

A Green Premier would pour human and financial resources into early intervention, to make sure at-risk families get help before disaster strikes, before more children are hurt, before the courts are clogged up with more desperately sad cases of abuse, neglect and family breakdown.

A Green Premier would establish a specialised care unit for young Tasmanians enduring the torment of mental illness, rather than condemning them to adult mental institutions or into the juvenile justice system.

A Green Premier would also prioritise the welfare of people living with disabilities, in Tasmania, the highest percentage of the population of any Australian State.

A Green Premier would implement every recommendation contained in the Joint Community Development Committee’s recent report on the failed Community Equipment Scheme, and make sure that no matter where you live in Tasmania, if you need specialised equipment that you cannot afford, it is available.

A Green Premier would better care for our carers, by working to ensure that both Federal and State Budgets recognised the critical, tireless and often thankless work carers do in our society.

A Green Premier would make sure disability support workers received better training and support, as well as a fair pay for the challenging work they do.

And would meet the modest wage claim the sector has currently put on the table, to date with too little cause for optimism.

Mr Speaker, the Greens have long advocated a new Greenfields hospital in Hobart for the benefit of Tasmania.

A Green Premier would commission the RPDC to run genuine engagement with the Tasmanian people in order to pick the best site for such a hospital.

Mr Speaker, it is well beyond time to create a Tasmania based on the eternal Australian value of equality.

All Tasmanians are created equal and we cannot create a truly civil Tasmanian society while we fail to treat all Tasmanians equally.

There is no such thing as mostly equal, and laws which discriminate even a little bit, are still discriminatory laws.

In recognition that this situation exists, a Green Premier would legislate to create state based gay marriage. There is no constitutional barrier to this initiative, and it would position Tasmania as a national leader in marriage equality.

Building Self-Reliance, Resilience And Independence In Our Communities.

Secondly, building self-reliance, resilience and independence in our communities.

A Green Premier would prioritise giving communities more self-determination, more control over their food and energy supplies, and more input into the decisions that will determine their future.

To give communities more control over, and responsibility for, their energy needs, a Green Premier would introduce a gross feed-in tariff, to drive installation of distributed electricity generation technologies in Tasmanian homes and businesses.

A Green Premier would also introduce state based subsidies for rooftop photovoltaics.

These initiatives would create green collar jobs.

They would bring the production of energy closer to the people who use it, in stark contrast to the policies of old style political parties who can only see a way to build bigger and more remote generation assets.

A Green Premier would also immediately commission an audit of all available crown land to identify land suitable for community gardens.

And deliver dollar for dollar funding for any community group or individual involved in creating Community Gardens.

We would encourage our communities to adopt permaculture principles in their Community Gardens, in this, the birthplace of permaculture.

Mr Speaker, building Community Gardens would build communities.

It would increase local community’s control over, and responsibility for, the food they eat.

It would deliver massive public health benefits, and significant environmental benefits as emissions are reduced from the transport sector as food miles decrease.

Unlike the current Premier, a Green Premier would not seek to reduce the capacity of Tasmanians to interact with the planning system.

To influence decisions on the matters that will impact on the very fabric of their day to day lives.

A Green Premier would create the position of Planning Advocate, tasked with assisting the community to prepare submissions to planning processes, whether in favour of, or against, a proposed development.

And unlike the current Premier, a Green Premier would not compromise the independence of the RPDC, the finest planning authority in Australia.

Instead, a Green Premier would enhance the RPDC by properly resourcing it to do its job, which is to make good planning decisions, not quick and dirty ones, including by rectifying the great planning failure of a decade of Labor, the failure to create a framework of State Policies.

Mr Speaker, integrated transport solutions are essential to build and empower communities.

A Green Premier would fund a comprehensive public transport strategy, including by setting, and meeting, targets for public transport patronage growth.

A Green Premier would complete the State Public Transport Strategy, with a full emission analysis of all options to improve Tasmania’s inadequate public transport system.

And a Green Premier would immediately implement all recommendations of the March 2003 Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Environment, Resources and Development, The Use of Compressed Natural Gas as a Vehicle Fuel in Tasmania.

A Green Premier would remove the shackles from Metro, enabling it to become a true 21st century public transport provider, by increasing funding to extend services without increasing fares, creating a more flexible and convenient public transport system, and enabling Metro buses to transport bicycles as part of commuter service delivery.

A Green Premier would introduce a sliding scale of vehicle registration fees based on emissions, and would proceed with modern passenger light rail systems from Hobart’s CBD to the northern suburbs, and along the North West Coast.

A Green Economic Direction and Delivering Green-Collar Jobs

Thirdly, acting on a Green economic direction and delivering Green-collar jobs.

Mr Speaker, a recent CSIRO report, ‘Growing the green collar economy’

shows that transitioning to a low-carbon economy will require a ‘green skills’ revolution in the Australian workforce. The CSIRO’s Dr Heinz Schandl, has said that, and I quote,

‘Achieving the transition to a low carbon economy will require a massive mobilisation of skills and training for our green collar workers, those who work in key sectors influencing our environmental footprint.

‘There is a triple dividend of greater wellbeing, cost-saving and reduced environmental impact to be earned if Australia takes measures to support the skills revolution required for a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable society.’

‘Growing the green collar economy’ projected an increase of 2.5–3.3 million jobs over the next two decades if Australia adopts a ‘sustainable future’ policy framework.’

Green jobs are not pie in the sky Mr Speaker, they are the way of the future.

Whether that job is as a scientist delivering sustainable fisheries, a consultant on renewable energy, a tradesperson installing insulation, or a bus driver, green jobs

are the jobs of the future.

A Green Premier would understand the importance of jobs to our people.

And a Green Premier would understand that in fifty year’s time, in a carbon neutral world, if your job is not a green job, you may not have a job.

Mr Speaker, Tasmania must be confident and aggressive in attracting green businesses and green jobs to our state.

A Green Premier would create a Green Business Attraction Fund to encourage green businesses to relocate to Tasmania.

It would target businesses from other states and overseas which are based in the low-carbon sector and can grow to offer Tasmanians Green collar jobs, and offer incentive packages to attract those businesses to Tasmania.

Mr Speaker, after ten years of Labor, on every connectivity measure Tasmania ranks at the bottom of the nation.

A Greens Premier will appoint a Minister for ICT, to drive a focus on improving this unacceptable situation.

And a Green Premier would create a Minister for Climate Change, and set a meaningful legislated emissions reduction target of 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 and net zero emissions by 2050.

Mr Speaker, a major concern for Tasmanians is their ever increasing power Bills. By 1 July this year power bills for domestic consumers will be a staggering 23.4% higher than they were 18 months previously.

This would increase a bill of $300 per month to over $370. And because of Labor’s shortsightedness in proceeding with Basslink, bills will only increase as a cost on carbon becomes a reality.

A Green Premier would solve this problem,

A Green Premier would significantly reduce power bills for low income Tasmanians, and at the same time create green jobs in the energy sector.

A Green Premier would carry out free energy audits in every Tasmanian home, and then fund energy efficiency upgrades with a payback period of ten years or less.

EASI-T will pay the initial upfront costs of the efficiency upgrades and this expenditure will then be recouped through regular CPI-indexed repayments, or at the sale of the property. The program has been designed to ensure that savings on energy bills will always exceed EASI-T repayments, so no homeowner, renter or landlord will ever be forced to pay more than their actual financial benefit.

Priority under EASI-T will be given to public housing and low-income households in order to take account of existing energy poverty, and to counter the impact of any increase in energy costs as a result of carbon pricing. The second-highest priority will be rental accommodation.

EASI-T will reduce power bills for low income Tasmanians at a time when they are increasing under Labor.

A Green Premier would immediately hold a green jobs summit, involving all stakeholders including the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Tasmanian Small Business Council.

Mr Speaker, a recent IPA survey has found that Tasmania has the most regressive taxation regime for small business in the country.

Small business is the engine room of the Tasmanian economy, and a Green Premier would commission a full review of small business taxation arrangements with the aim of making Tasmania the country’s most attractive place to run a small business.

A Green Premier would rebadge and refocus the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources as the Department of Climate Change, and task it with leading Tasmania into the green economy.

Mr Speaker, a Green Premier would unlock Braddon’s economic potential by establishing a Tarkine National Park.

A Tarkine National Park would combine the need to protect the area’s environmental and cultural heritage values with the opportunity to attract investment to the North-West and West Coast region, and to market that region to the world.

A Green Premier would ensure that every dollar of the Federal Government Infrastructure package that is available to Tasmania will be invested into Green projects that will generate long term Green jobs for Tasmania. A Green Premier will work with the Local Government Association of Tasmania to establish criteria to ensure that the projects funded by this once in a generation opportunity.

Green Jobs are Tasmania’s future Mr Speaker. The Greens realise this and would act strongly with the private sector to deliver this employment security to Tasmania.

100% Renewable Energy in Tasmania

Fourthly Mr Speaker, by taking no backward step on the road towards 100% renewable energy in Tasmania.

Mr Speaker, just imagine if everything we produced in Tasmania, all of our goods and services, were proudly labelled “Made in Tasmania with 100% renewable energy.”

What a unique selling point that would be. What a boon for our exporters.

That is the Greens vision for Tasmania’s energy future. It is a vision of self reliance, of taking absolute responsibility, and absolute control over, our energy needs.

A Green Premier would move toward this vision by setting a target of complete energy self-sufficiency by 2050. No more Basslinks, no more oil imports, just 100% renewable energy.

A Green Premier would fighting for this future by demanding that the Federal government introduce a much higher MRET target than the Rudd government says it is committed to, that is, 25% by 2020.

By fighting for an equitable ETS, one which recognises Tasmania’s renewable energy advantage, with much higher targets than the minimalist efforts of Rudd, Wong and Garrett.

Mr Speaker, to truly make Tasmania a renewable energy island, we need to encourage competition, and private sector investment, in renewable energy generation and transmission.

A Green Premier would remove the legislative and organisational barriers which currently provide a disincentive to private sector renewable energy generation in Tasmania.

A Green Premier would take no backward step in making Tasmania a 100% renewable energy island.

Healing Our Community and Improving Our Democracy

Fifthly, healing our community and improving our democracy.

Mr Speaker, one of the great challenges humanity faces is overcoming the hate between people due to race, religion and politics. The scourge of terrorism is an example. It is time Tasmania met the challenge of overcoming hate and loathing in our own communities.

Debates over natural resources in this state have resulted in many positive outcomes.

Protection of significant wild areas, and ecologically significant and unique areas.

But there have also been divisions, and hurts, and hatreds that have been allowed to fester in our community for far too long.

Let us acknowledge these hurts and divisions that have flowed from these hard fought debates and disputes.

But let us also realise that these debates have also resulted in a deeply held awareness about the value of our environment, and the importance of sustainability.

To a degree unsurpassed anywhere in the world.

Let’s take these circumstances, and make them work for us.

Let’s take what some would say is a negative, and make it into a positive.

This deeply held environmental awareness would allow a true Leader to unite Tasmania, and to take Tasmanians together on a journey to a green economic future.

I am standing here today to tell you that we can save our remaining threatened high conservation value forests, and build a timber industry that we can all be proud of.

I do not believe those who say that it cannot be done.

It can be done, and a Green Premier would show the leadership necessary to make it happen.

Mr Speaker, how bizarre it is that in Tasmania today we have a Leader of the Greens who has met peak forest industry groups like the Forest Industry Association of Tasmania, but a Premier who has not met peak environmental groups like Environment Tasmania and The Wilderness Society.

Mr Speaker, it beggars belief, but that is, in fact, the situation.

It is a situation that shows who is, in fact, serious about building bridges, and who is prepared to tolerate and encourage division for his own political gain.

Mr Speaker, despite the conflicts over resource allocation in Tasmania, there is one deeply-held value that is shared between environmentalists, foresters and farmers. Indeed, I believe it is held by all Tasmanians.

That is, a respect for the land. This respect can underpin a healing of the deeply held divisions in our community. And allow us to realise our destiny as a global leader in the sustainability century.

Mr Speaker, a Green Premier would lead the way in meaningful reconciliation with the Aboriginal community, by working towards a treaty which recognised the invasion of their lands by Europeans.

By moving towards the further return of lands to the Aboriginal community.

By recognising traditional rights to resources.

And by involving the Aboriginal people meaningfully in land use decision making across every jurisdiction of land in Tasmania.

Democracy – Accepting the Will of the People

A Green Premier would work to improve our democracy in many areas.

Mr Speaker, recently the issue of power sharing has arisen again. The issue of majority versus minority government.

And we have heard some familiar fear-mongering on the issue from some, including our Premier.

But I believe that Mr Bartlett has misread the mood of the people on this issue.

He has failed to realise that the question Tasmanians ask today is not whether there is a majority or minority government, but whether a government delivers good outcomes.

They ask whether the people who make up a government are good people, creating good policy, not whether any one political Party happens to hold more than half the seats in the House of Assembly.

Mr Bartlett fails to realise that the ground has shifted beneath him.

That the people of Tasmania have moved past the stale, self interested ideologies that have previously dominated this debate, and which continue to dominate Mr Bartlett’s position on the issue.

And that they will come more and more to look at Mr Bartlett as a Cold War ideologue, still fighting an outdated battle while the rest of the world has moved on, and more interested in hanging on to power than in delivering good outcomes for Tasmania.

Those who hold firm to the old ideology that majority government is good, and minority is bad, are denying Tasmania’s history.

It’s a history which shows that the debt reduction strategy that sees Tasmania General Government Net Debt free today began under a power sharing Parliament, and that the Hydro remains in public hands because of a power sharing Parliament.

It’s a history which shows that majority power in Labor’s hands over the last three years has delivered a period of political and governmental instability which is unmatched in recent times.

It’s a history which shows that absolute power in Labor’s hands has delivered absolutely shocking outcomes for Tasmania.

And it’s a history which shows that significant social advances occurred during periods in which power was shared in Tasmania’s Parliament. Gun law reform, and gay law reform, just to name a couple.

The Tasmanian people understand that giving absolute power to one group of people is not necessarily healthy.

And crucially Mr Speaker, those who prophesy doom if there is not a majority government, like our current Premier, are also talking our economy down. And they are doing so for their own self interested political purposes.

A true leader would consolidate confidence in Tasmania’s economy by saying ‘Tasmania’s economy is strong enough and resilient enough to thrive and prosper whatever the make-up of the next Parliament.

But what Mr Bartlett is doing is acting only in his own political self interest, not in Tasmania’s interest, and increasing the likelihood that a by-product of his desperate desire to hang onto power is a crashing of economic confidence in the event of a power sharing Parliament.

Mr Bartlett is prepared to sacrifice economic growth for his own political self interest. Who would have thought?

Mr Speaker, as I said the Tasmanian people are moving past the old debates. They have moved on. The challenge is for political leaders to move along with them.

On this issue, and on others.

Global Financial Crisis

Mr Speaker, the state’s response to global financial crisis would be a great place to start. We can do this by co-operating more, by working together more constructively on crucial issues.

This is one of the great challenges of recent times for Tasmania, and it requires solutions based on considering all possible solutions and all ideas, no matter who has conceived of them.

It requires a putting aside of ideological differences and a commitment to work constructively together. Open the books, even on a confidential basis. Create a war cabinet-style committee, involving the three political leaders in this House.

Full disclosure of financial situation – nothing in the Financial Management and Audit Act 1990 that prohibits of prevents further disclosures over and above those that are mandated in that Act.

We need to be prepared to run deficit budgets, possible more than just one or two, in order to provide

The shortfall in state government revenues caused by the global financial crisis will undoubtedly have impacts on Tasmania’s public sector.

The Greens have proposed a plebiscite across Tasmania’s public sector to test support for a small, temporary reduction in working hours in order to inoculate against any job losses. At it’s heart, this is a proposal to directly consult with the very people whose jobs the current government is refusing to guarantee. It is supported by Tasmania’s public sector unions, but extraordinarily, not by the government.

There are many benefits to reducing working hours as opposed to sacking workers, including better public sector morale, a better work/life balance, a healthier and more productive workforce, retention of skilled workers and their families in Tasmania, and the maintenance of current levels of service provision in the community.

A Green Premier would understand that in spite of being materially better off than our forebears, we are not as healthy or happy as we could be. Or should be.

It is economic vandalism for the Premier to focus public sector job cuts on primary industries, tourism, industry development and environment, when the state relies on these key sectors to drive our economy.

Cutting jobs in the public service during this global financial crisis will do irreparable damage to the economy just when it needs stimulus.

A Green Premier would save every job in the public sector, fill every vacancy, and retain every service to the Tasmanian community during these tough times. It is a vision in stark contrast to the job shedding, vacancy control measures currently in place.

Restore the House of Assembly

Mr Speaker, a Green Premier would also move to restore the House of Assembly to put backsides on the 35 seats that exist on its floor after recent renovations.

This would ensure better representation for Tasmanians, a deeper talent pool of potential ministers, and better outcomes generated out of Tasmania’s Parliament.

Who could argue against that?

Mr Speaker, over the last three years of majority Labor government, the Tasmanian community has become rightfully sceptical about the probity of many government processes.

A Green Premier would gladly have its ethical and policy framework put under rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny.

I believe this is what people look for in their government – more honesty, decency, a fairer vision.

A Green Premier would proceed with a fully fledged Integrity Commission, with all the teeth necessary to instill confidence in Tasmania’s community that public figures, including politicians from all levels of government, were behaving properly and with utmost probity.

A Green Premier would be genuine about Tasmania Together.

He or she would lead government’s sincere response to what Tasmanians said in that process about their desire for a positive, prosperous future, respectful of people and our rich natural and cultural heritage.

Tasmania Truly Together under a Green Government would be a place in which all Tasmanians genuinely feel ownership of their democracy. It would be a beautiful place, an enlightened, sustainable and prosperous island.

A Green Premier would work with all Tasmanians to ensure that that value was commonly held and understood.

Spending Our First Dollar on Education, Not Our Last

Sixthly, spending our first dollar on education, not our last.

The University of Tasmania is one of our country’s finest educational institutions. It has a crucial role to play in delivering Tasmania into the sustainability century.

A Green Premier would heed the words of United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki Moon, who said prior to the Bali United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference:

‘We have experienced several great economic transformations … the industrial revolution, the technology revolution, our modern era of globalization. Now we are on the threshold of another revolution-the age of green economics.’

Mr Speaker, a Green Premier would enter into a partnership with the University of Tasmania to develop a Centre for Green Economics, to make Tasmania a global leader in developing the new frameworks that capitalism will need in order to meet the sustainability challenge.

Mr Speaker, of course the mining and forest industries have a crucial role to play in Tasmania’s social and economic future.

Tasmania has a proud mining heritage. The tenacity and courage of our early miners underwrote so much of the early prosperity of our state, and it is time to take steps to develop a 21st Century mining industry in Tasmania.

Tasmania is perfectly placed to be a global leader in developing sustainable mining practices for world’s mining problems. In our relatively small landmass we have legacy issues, we have evolving best practice, we have greenfield sites, we have scientific and environmental expertise in the sector, we have including an awareness that things must change, and we have the Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits at the Univerity of Tasmania.

This offers us a brilliant opportunity to use this situation to drive innovation and expertise in sustainable mining. A Green Premier would work with the University of Tasmania to develop a Centre for Environmental Excellence in Mining.

Mr Speaker, in conclusion, we heard from the Premier yesterday a focus that is on Tasmania in the next decade. But a Green Premier would focus on the next century.

Mr Speaker, today I have laid out an alternative vision for our wonderful island state. It is a Green vision, and one that could only be delivered by a Green Premier.

It is a decisive vision, not a divisive one. It is a vision of hope, not of hopelessness. And it is a vision of empowerment, not of fear. It is a vision that builds on Tasmania’s historical strengths, and the contemporary skills and strengths of our people. And it is a vision that has as an absolute foundation the involvement, and the empowerment, of Tasmania’s people.

This is no time to be waiting for a lead from Washington or Canberra.

These are extraordinary times, and require extraordinary leadership. It is a time for bravery and inspiration, not for business as usual.

We Greens have been pivotal in where Tasmania has gone, we have shown leadership, and have been a transformational force for positive change in Tasmania, and we stand willing to continue to work to deliver outcomes for Tasmania.