Liberal and Labor Both Out-debated

Will … tired after Springsteen. Lara … waiting tables …?

Despite both the Labor and Liberal party being asked on several occasions, from mid February, to provide a candidate for the Waste of Tasmania Debate no candidate was available for the 90-minute debate.

Lazlo Steigenberger, the LAST Tasmanian social commentator and satirist, went to town with a variety of one-liners such as, “Will was too tired, having just got back from the Springsteen concert,” and “Lara was too busy waiting tables,” that were hilarious despite being sadly true.

Why the two main parties did not attend is anyone’s guess. But given their responses to a recent Southern Beaches Conservation Society survey we are left assuming it is because neither will put Tasmania’s waste management or job creation ahead of their own party interests. All candidates made to toe the Party line.

When asked in a written survey if they would consider alternative options to landfill disposal and treatment of hazardous materials, both Labor and Liberal said NO.

When asked if they would support private enterprise to reprocess hazardous waste, both Labor and Liberal said NO.

When asked if they stop other countries sending their Antarctic waste to Tasmania, both Labor and Liberal said NO.

Left to their own devices, the remaining debate between the Green party’s Tim Morris, the Palmer United Party’s Mark Grube, Independent Michael Swanston and Andrew Ransom, a mining and remediation specialist, was lively, fielding and hotly contesting the need for a C cell.

At the end of the night the resounding result was in favour of the need for a review of waste management in Tasmania,, the need for a state based waste management strategy to determine alternatives to landfill.