Gutwein Preparing to Roll Over to Federal

In Parliament today, Treasurer Peter Gutwein made it clear he is prepared to do Federal Hotels’ bidding and extend the destructive gambling monopoly deal beyond 2018.

The Treasurer is using MONA’s desire to establish a boutique, high-rollers casino as a Trojan horse to extend the Federal monopoly deal which was negotiated and signed in secret back in 2003.

Mr Gutwein is talking about the five year rolling extension of the monopoly deal to 2023 as if it’s a given, when the Deed makes it clear any extension is at the discretion of the Minister.

He is effectively pretending that Federals’ has the government over a barrel if it decides to support MONA’s proposal.

The Treasurer should know that Parliament can vary the Deed at any time.

There is no valid sovereign risk argument here when Federal Hotels has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in profit over the life of the Deed, mostly off the back of low income Tasmanians.

Yet again, we’re seeing an old party bend over backwards to cater to Federal, just as Labor did back in 2003.

Clearly, political donations have paid off for Federal, who have donated $77 000 to Tasmanian Labor since 2002 and $72 000 to the Liberals.

The Liberals have no mandate to extend the monopoly deal which has caused such misery and pain in our community. If they believe it should be extended, they need to put it to the people in the lead up to the next state election.

• Kym Goodes, CEO, TasCOSS: Tasmanians deserve transparency in all dealings of the Hodgman and any other government.

There are procurement processes in place and these should be followed for large and small contracts and deeds alike.

This is a perfect chance for the Hodgman Government to walk the walk it has been talking about and ensure all deals done are transparent and pass a fairness test.

Tasmanians deserve to get the best possible deal from whoever eventually signs the Deed with Government. We are sure the Government and the Treasurer in particular would see a lot of value in working with Tasmanians to get the best deal out of this for all of us.

The opportunity to talk about the content and consequences of this Deed only comes around once in a while: it’s a wonderful chance to ask Tasmanians what they want the money raised by it to be spent on. Let’s not miss this golden opportunity.

• Ben Cannon in Comments: The deal between Farrell family (owners of the Federal group) and the Lablibs is a prime example of bottom feeding, offshore funnelling, crony capitalism. The sooner it ends the better off the state will be. I assume the Farrells would be against any gambling at Mona because it might impact on their dole vacuuming business across the road at 666 Main road Berriedale.