Nick McKim: Liberals’ off the shelf post-election strategy

The new Liberal government is paving the way for its first broken election promises, exactly as incoming Liberal governments around the country have done.

“Not only did Will Hodgman run an off-the-shelf election campaign copied from Tony Abbott and Campbell Newman, but it looks like their broken promises will follow the same pattern,” Greens Leader Nick McKim said.

“First they will claim that there is some kind of hidden budget problem, and then they will come out and use the fake problem as an excuse to start breaking their promises.”

“Like everyone else, the Liberals knew exactly what the Tasmanian budget situation was before the start of the campaign.”

“Only two days after winning the election, the Liberal Party has already begun treating Tasmanians with contempt.”

“The only difference from previous conservative governments is that in his eagerness to break promises, Mr Gutwein has been a bit quicker off the mark than other incoming Liberal Treasurers.”

“The only real question for Tasmanian people now is exactly which of Liberals’ promises will be thrown on the scrap heap.”

Audio Grab #1
“Will Hodgman went around in the election campaign with the white folder, the infamous white folder with the plan on the top of it. The key plank of the election campaign and in fact their campaign for the last three years has been to rip up the Tasmanian Forests Agreement. So Will, we’re sure you’ve got your forestry plan in your white folder, could we please see it? I think the Tasmanian people have got a right to see the Liberal’s forest plan.”

Audio Grab #2
“So if there is a return to the dark days of conflict and division it will be one person’s responsibility and one person’s only and that will be Will Hodgman.”

Audio Grab #3
“We’ve seen in Queensland, we’ve seen in Canberra and in other states where conservative governments are elected, straight away they come out and say the budget is much worse than we thought, and they use that as their excuse to break a number of their election commitments.”
Greens Leader Nick McKim