Bryan Green Abandons Tasmanians

Bryan Green has admitted his own election promises were unaffordable while abandoning frontline services and regional communities.

On ABC Radio yesterday, Bryan Green said, “We had promised $160 million, Louise, leading up to the election, we admit that was probably unaffordable.”1

This frank admission begs the question: what would Labor have done if they had been re-elected? Broken their promises like they did in 2010? Or cut even more than the 1,000 job cuts they already had embedded in the budget.

Labor wrecked the budget in Government, and nothing has changed.

In contrast, our election promises were more than fully offset with savings, and in fact improved the budget bottom line by more than $100 million.

When asked further about where Labor would have made savings instead of the public sector, Mr Green replied:

“I would reduce the overall spending commitment that the government has made. They talk about extra police and extra teachers, all of those things would’ve been lovely for us to do but we couldn’t afford it at the time, and I put it to you Louise that it is still relatively unaffordable. We would not have committed to all of the spending and if you look at the budget papers there’s pages of one-off spending across Tasmania which is effectively is pork barrelling for electorates and involves small amounts of spending. I’d extend that commitment out.” 1

Labor gutted frontline services when they were in Government and nothing has changed in Opposition – they continue to oppose more police and teachers.

Just as bad, Bryan Green has confirmed he opposes investment in regional communities – shovel-ready projects which will create jobs and drive investments in areas which need it after Labor’s disastrous economic mismanagement.

Labor abandoned regional Tasmania while in Government, and nothing has changed.

We are getting on with the job of fixing the Budget mess after Labor and the Greens wrecked the economy and left $1.1 billion in accumulated budget deficits, net debt peaking at $400 million and 1,000 embedded job cuts.

1Bryan Green, Louise Saunders program, ABC 936, 28/10/14
Peter Gutwein, Treasurer