Greens and minor parties excluded from TCCI Candidate Forum

Greens candidate for Braddon Jarrod Edwards expressed his frustration that the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry won’t deliver anything useful for Braddon voters tonight with the deliberate exclusion of Greens and minor parties.

‘Without the Greens in this debate there will be no one raising the many economic issues critical to the voters of Braddon that are being deliberately and constantly ignored by the big parties,’ Mr Edwards said.

‘This includes raising Newstart, legislating for a rise in the minimum wage, and a federal funding and financing strategy for new public housing’.

‘Given both Labor and Liberal are constantly in lock step with big business, there will be no candidate holding the big Salmon companies to account for the damage they already done to Braddon’s waterways and communities, and certainly no one will be speaking up against imminent plans for new seismic testing and oil and gas drilling in Tasmanian waters, putting our critical fisheries at risk’

‘Of course, there will be no recognition that the Greens long-standing vision for the Tasmanian economy, based around protecting our special places like the Tarkine, promoting sustainable tourism and our clean, green and clever brand, is today delivering for Tasmania.’

‘And of course, no one from Labor or Liberal will ask if Braddon is missing out on important opportunities for jobs and investment because it won’t embrace protecting the Tarkine, one of the most special places on the planet.’

‘Instead, without the Greens at the TCCI forum, they will bung on about the need for more boom and bust mining and forestry jobs that have largely failed this electorate’.

‘It is a missed opportunity not having the Greens in this debate, holding the big parties to account for holding onto a failed business model that hasn’t delivered for Braddon’.

‘By excluding the Greens and other minor parties, the TCCI is signalling that they are happy to hear more about the failed business model of the old parties at their forum tonight, a failed business model that hasn’t delivered secure jobs or economic prosperity for the voters of Braddon.”
Greens candidate for Braddon Jarrod Edwards