Woodruff: Say No to ‘Sport Rorts Style’ Campaigning

Transcript of media conference with Greens’ Leader Rosalie Woodruff, Parliament Lawns, Hobart, 19 February 2024.

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

The Liberals have said they’re finishing their pre-selection on the weekend, and so they’ll be ready to have swarms of candidates out on the streets, making promises to the electorate. In the last election and the one before we saw Liberal candidates going out promising millions of dollars to people in the electorate to buy their votes. We’ve seen an inappropriate and wasteful use of public money, grant monies that weren’t decided on an independent and merit-based process. It means the potential for corruption, and worse, in an election campaign, the Integrity Commission doesn’t even have the power to investigate those practices.

So we’re calling on the Liberal and Labor parties to make sure that all candidates don’t misuse promises of grants expenditure on public money, and commit to not promising millions of dollars of taxpayers’ grant money to buy votes during the election process. We’re also calling on any future government to reform the Integrity Commission to give it the power to investigate and to fix the loophole at the moment, which means the candidate can’t be investigated in this period of time.

And finally, we will commit an investment of $10 million to the Tasmanian Community Fund, recognising that there is a real need in Tasmania for so many extra services, sport and rec grounds and so many other issues that Tasmanian have a right to call for, for a future government to fund. We are asking for the Liberal and Labor parties to promise that they won’t be doing the sports rorts style campaigning that they’ve done in the past, to commit to fair and independent processes, recognising that all Tasmanians have got a right – particularly with cost of living pressures – to have a fair hearing for their own sport and rec or community issue that they want to have funded.

Tasmanian Times

Yesterday the Liberals were at Festa Italia and promised $50,000; is that the sort of thing that you’re talking about?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

We’re talking about what happened in the last election, where in Liberal Party headquarters candidates were given pretty much at this point in the election campaign, pieces of paper, to go out into the electorate and to write down their promises, their commitments that their projects would get funded. So we’re talking about promises for grant money to be delivered in the next term of government, that candidates made at the last election, and we’re calling on both the Liberal and Labor parties to rule out sports rorts style campaigning.

Journalist – Adam Langenberg

Is there any indication that that sports rorts campaigning is actually happening?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

No, we haven’t yet but it was at this point in the 2021 election campaign, where this started to happen. We saw, popping up on Facebook pages of Liberal Party candidates, promises that they’d made, they will be delivering this and they will be delivering that. Let’s be clear, there is so much need in the Tasmanian community, and there is so much that is deserved. And there has to be an independent and merit-based process of public money. It can’t be up to political candidates to just dish them out to buy votes and lead to the potential for corruption.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Part of the problem three years ago was there wasn’t a great deal of openness about what exactly was being given the money because it was just popping up on a Facebook page. Would you like to see a lot more openness and transparency and our bodies actually be given money this time around?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

What we saw is that more than half of the Liberal cabinet in the last term of government was implicated in these handing out public money commitments, promises to their mates, to family members. This was like overt vote buying. The potential for corrupt practices was writ large. It is unfair for Tasmanian who deserves to have, on their own merits, their communities all improved, their recreation ground fixed up, but if they’re not in a vote-buying area, they won’t get a look-in. So we’re calling out that practice and calling on the Liberal and Labor parties to promise that they won’t have a sports rorts style campaign.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

Clubs and organisations know though that election time is when they they have an opportunity to get the gutter fixed or whatever. I mean, you can’t expect them not to lobby to try and get something good for their club. They know election time’s ripe for the picking don’t they.

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

Lobbying, talking, that’s absolutely the practice of, of talking to people in our communities. As candidates we are going out and speaking to people. And of course, people will ask us for things. But the role of a government that is our fair and independent, that wants to make sure that it isn’t sowing the seeds for corrupt practices, is to put it through an independent, merit-based review. That’s the sort of thing that you hand over when you’re in government to public servants to make those assessments independently. There is so much need in Tasmania. And that’s why we’ve committed an extra $10 million to the Tasmanian Community Fund, recognising that, and recognising that everyone should have a fair say.

Journalist – unidentified

Should there be a penalty for this?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

There has to be a penalty fixed where the Integrity Commission can investigate matters in the election campaign. The Greens moved to fix this in Parliament. We brought on a bill to do that. The Liberal Party voted that down. It speaks volumes, really, when it was the Liberal Party at the 2018 and the 2021 elections who engaged in these practices. The Integrity Commission identified that happened in 2018. But there is no way to fix, there’s no way to investigate that sort of corrupt practices during an election campaign, because the legislation is lacking at the moment.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Festa Italia is probably the only specific event or specific project we’ve seen given funds at the moment. Is that the type of thing you’d like to see parties veer away from?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

Well, it’s incredibly important that when candidates are making commitments, that they will deliver money through a grant process to areas, that is total vote buying. We can’t be committing in advance what is an independent public service process. We can’t be committing to to funding a particular body within that area. What we know from the last election is that there was a scramble in Treasury to move money around to allocate towards the near $20 million worth of money that was promised. And that never ended up in the budget of that year.

Journalist – Adam Langenberg

While we’re talking about Integrity Commission investigations, there was lots of chatter over the weekend about who may or may not be subject to one. Do you think those investigations needs to be done quicker? It doesn’t feel fair to anyone involved that they drag on for years and it’s just speculation.

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

The Greens have long been concerned at the under-funding and lack of teeth of Tasmania’s Integrity Commission. And we will have more to say specifically on that thing in this campaign. But absolutely, investigations have to be done with the resources that they need, so that they can be completed early. It’s so important that the Integrity Commission has a large amount of resourcing enabled to help them to stamp out corrupt practices.

Tasmanian Times

Were the Greens out door-knocking this weekend, and if so what kind of feedback are you getting at this stage in the campaign?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

Yes. We were out door-knocking across the state, I was in Blackmans Bay myself. And I was hearing a strong move for wanting to kick this government out, to have a new government and to have some real change and not just fiddling around the edges. People are, you know, there’s a lot of desperation out there in the community. People feel that there’s a government that is never going to take action, and they’re starting to think that things can’t be fixed. So our strong message, of course, is that there are solutions that are possible, there is definitely change that we can make.

Journalist – Adam Langenberg

You’ve been speaking strongly for rental protections and the Liberals are out announcing today they’ll allow renters to have pets, which you’ve fought pretty strongly for. Is that a good move?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

We definitely support allowing renters to have pets in rentals. We moved legislation for that to happen late last year and the Liberal and Labor parties unfortunately both voted against it. I don’t understand why they didn’t take it up then but it should happen as soon as possible.

It’s only just a small part of what needs to happen to reform the life of renters and make it bearable. Of course rental controls are top of the list, as well as making sure that people can’t be evicted without cause and that there’s minimum standards energy efficiency standards in dwelling.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Part of that package is is offering a cash incentive for people who build to rent or switch from their short state homes to rent. And they’re also boosting the private rental incentives. Do those two measures sound like enough?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

Look, I think fiddling around the edges. Fundamentally, what we have to do is we have to have support for people who are renting and have enormous price hikes in their rents. And we have to have homes for people to move into. What we know is that the Liberals have promised to build 10,000 homes, but they only have a budget to build 3000. So our commitment is to quadruple the budget to actually get the job done.

But ultimately, unless we deal with the short stay whole homes problem, then we will never make traction. There’s four and a half thousand people who are on the public housing waiting lists, and there’s four and a half thousand short stay whole home homes in Tasmania. Our commitment would be to end those whole home short stays in residential areas.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

It’s not your bread and butter big-L Liberal policy, though, assistance for renters. Does it sort of show that a) we’ve got a big problem and b) maybe the Premier’s sort of more moderate influence is starting to sink into the Libs if this early in the campaign they’re looking to do something like that.

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

I think it says nothing about the Premiers more moderate influence. Whatever heart Jeremy has as a person has had no effect on his role as the Premier and what’s happened under him since he’s been Premier. He’s shown no appetite to do the things that would really make a difference on cost of living measures for people. And the fact that he’s championed the stadium, despite the fact that there’s obviously going to be over a billion dollars in money going there, instead of into building homes, says everything to people who are doing it tough. So what I heard on the doors yesterday is people cannot believe that the Premier would choose to keep championing a stadium instead of building houses and building hospitals.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

They crunched the numbers on the weekend around the Upper House election. Was it tempting for the Greens given there’s time to run in Upper House if you’re not successful, to bring back Cassy O’Connor? Or did Vica say “No, you stick to your plan to run for Hobart?”

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

We are very excited about having Cassy O’Connor as the Member for Hobart in the Upper House. And we are really looking forward to that campaign. Of course, it’s going now, two campaigns. And so we’re campaigning to have extra members in the Lower and the Upper houses as well as across the state. Cassy has got an incredible length of service and commitment that people in Hobart know her for. And that’s what she will be speaking so strongly about to people on the doors that she’s been doing for a long time now. a

Journalist – Josh Duggan

There’s bit of a clear run at Prosser. Are you going hunting for a candidate there?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

We haven’t made a decision about that at the moment, but there’s obviously a gaping hole. The Liberals felt a desperate need to move Jane Howlett into the Lower House position. And, you know, that will what it will be. I can say that the Greens are running Tabatha Badger in Lyons, she’s well known and very well liked. So we’re looking forward to that contest.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

The Libs are obviously going to run this, you know, majority government or the coalition of chaos stuff. That sort of campaign worked well for Paul Lennon in 2006. It’s worked well for Libs at other times, but do you think this time will go down a bit differently given what we’ve seen in the last twelve months and I guess lack of stability?

Rosalie Woodruff – Greens Leader

What we’ve had in the last 12 months, in the last six months, is a lot of outcomes for Tasmania. And you know, since I’ve been the leader in this period of time, we’ve been able to negotiate an ambulance ramping inquiry which has cracked open the situation in health and has already forced the Liberals to start making changes. We got whistle-blower reforms through and we got extra scrutiny for the Commission of inquiry.

There’s no doubt that Tasmanians can see that people who are genuinely working consistently every single day, listening to their issues and putting them on the table in Parliament in a collaborative process. I’m confident that that’s what Tasmanians want. They want stability in government, and they want people who can provide that in a balance of power arrangement. That’s exactly what the Greens would do. We would negotiate to get the outcomes Tasmanians wants. We know how to work hard with people. We’re not we’re collaborative and not antagonistic in that relationship. And Jeremy and Rebecca both can attest to that in the communication that we’ve had over the time that I’ve been leader. So that’s what we’re looking forward to, being in the balance of power, having a new government and working hard to get those outcomes with independents or with whoever is the party.