Transcript of media conference with Tabatha Badger, Greens candidate for Lyons, and Greens Leader Rosalie Woodruff, North Hobart, 21 March 2024.
Tabatha Badger
Tasmania has a skills shortage as it is, let alone with the future industries that we’re going to see moving forward that require a whole new skill set for renewables,for electric vehicles. That is why I am so excited to be here today, as a part of announcing the Greens policy for future jobs. It is absolutely critical that Tasmanians receive the adequate training and the facilities to be able to undertake that training and the support, so that we can keep future jobs here in Tasmania with Tasmanians so that they don’t go to people on the mainland or from elsewhere.
As a part of the Greens’ future jobs plan, we will make sure that Tasmania has the Cert III in Automotive Electrical Training. Currently, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are the only states that don’t have this on offer. With a transition to electric vehicles, it is so important that Tasmania can offer such a course. We also need to make sure that we can train people, that we have VET courses available so that people here in Tasmania can work on renewable energy projects.
At the moment we’re seeing fly-in fly-out workers from elsewhere, but we have to keep the jobs here in Tasmania and that means having adequate training for them. Underpinning all of this is making sure that TAFE is free in the future. New apprentices need to have the support.
As a part of the plan, we can help support apprentices with new grants on offer and exclusions from payroll tax. The Greens new plan for future jobs we can see rolled out by 2030. This is an absolutely crucial deadline when we’re mitigating the climate crisis which these jobs will help support in industry.
Journalist – Elliott
And there’s a number of scholarships that are being offered as well, right? And is that is that reflective of the number and extent of the skills shortage in this area?
Tabatha Badger
In EV tech and electrical automotive, Tasmania has some of the highest skill shortage in the country. It is absolutely critical that we fill that gap, that we do have the facilities available and we’re supporting new people going in to learn those skills to support the industry moving forward.
Journalist – Elliott
And beyond electric vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles are popping up around the place, are you hoping that these courses would also skill people up in those areas?
Tabatha Badger
The Greens plan for future jobs has up to 20 new VET courses for new industries moving forward, be it from EVs, different forms of clean automotive, or renewable energy projects that we can help support, fill the skills shortage in Tasmania?
Tasmanian Times
Where in Tasmania do you see these courses being delivered?
Tabatha Badger
As a part of the plan, we can see our TAFE system rollout these courses. TAFE absolutely needs to be free for people to be able to go in and learn these skills. And it needs to be back in the state service as well.
Journalist – Elliott
The Liberals, they say they want to transition the government car fleet to electric vehicles. Does that strike you as being a contradiction that they want to expand electric vehicle use but they haven’t created these courses?
Tabatha Badger
It’s beyond time that we electrified Tasmania’s vehicle fleet and specifically our government vehicle fleet. But that absolutely proves the point that we have to have the skills and the workers and the trained workforce to be able to service these vehicles to keep everybody safe on our roads.
Tasmanian Times
We’re getting towards the end of the campaign. There was a leaders’ debate last night, the Greens weren’t invited but Labor and Liberal leaders were sort of trying to sum up how the campaign is gone, what the big themes have been and what they’re promising. So given that we’re now in this summing up phase, how would you sum up the campaign? What have been the best and worst ideas? How do you think the Greens’ campaign has gone?
Rosalie Woodruff
The Greens have had the best ideas because we’ve been fighting on these issues for years, and we’ve been representing the community’s voices at this election. We’re very, very clear that we need to have big, strong investments and real action on climate, on the situation with health and the housing crisis, cost of living for people and protecting the environment into the future.
I listened to the leaders’ debate, and we welcome and we’ll work with Liberal and Labour politicians to make real changes, but I was frankly underwhelmed given the scale of need that’s required. I haven’t heard either Liberal or Labor politicians talking about where they’re going to raise the revenue in order to make these big new investments that we need: building affordable homes, building more hospital infrastructure. Which is why the Greens are so clear that we will get into Parliament, work to be in a balance of power to make sure we stop the building of the stadium, put a billion dollars into critical infrastructure, and also raise some extra revenue in the budget by taxing big corporations more so that they pay their fair share.
Journalist – Elliott
Labor’s set to release its costings today. The Liberals have criticised the timing and say that is too close to the day of the polls, what do you say to that?
Rosalie Woodruff
The biggest question that the Labor Party hasn’t been clear with Tasmanians about is whether they will vote against a stadium when it comes back to Parliament. That is the only answer that they need to give Tasmanians for real clarity on election day. Will Labor politicians vote against the stadium?
The Greens have been very clear. Our heart is with over 100,000 Tasmanians who are excited about a team. We are absolutely confident that we can go in and renegotiate a deal with the AFL to have the heart of footy in Launceston at York Park into the future. Starting immediately with the massive energy we’ve got from Tasmanians, we believe absolutely that we can be part of renegotiating that deal. That’s what we need to hear from the Labor Party. And the Liberals have made their position clear. But Rebecca White needs to be clear in her costings, whether they will include taking that billion dollars and putting it into hospitals and housing.
Journalist – Elliott
Does she needs to be clear about who she’s been talking to at the AFL?
Rosalie Woodruff
Well, everything about the Labor Party’s position on the stadium is confusing for Tasmanians. We’ve been hearing repeatedly on the doors, that people want that money to be spent on the more critical issues of health and housing, real cost of living. We could have free public transport, we can have really genuinely free schools, we can have affordable homes being built, but the money’s got to come from somewhere.
That’s why we’re very clear about making sure the stadium is not built, to put that money into critical infrastructure, as well as taxing big corporations. So we welcome the Labor Party’s commitments. They’re not enough, but more importantly, how would they actually really pay for them without generating the extra money in the budget like the Greens have shown we would do?
Tasmanian Times
Last night I looked at all the sports grants available. There are grants for facilities, for equipment, for travel, for hosting national tournaments. In this financial year it looks like the grant amounts total about 8.05 million. And so the $375 million capped that the Premier stated, that’s equivalent to local sports funding for about 45 years. Do you think that shows the disparity between this stadium idea and the reality of Tasmanians who want to be involved in grassroots sport?
Rosalie Woodruff
It’s a very excellent point and one of the many very excellent points that are made against spending a billion dollars, which is what it will realistically be, on a stadium that we don’t need when we’ve got a perfectly good stadium at York Park with the upgrade of $130 million that’s promised. It just can’t be justified given all the other critical need in Tasmania, including for sporting facilities that have never fallen on the radar of Liberal politicians at election times and somehow I doubt they will this time as well, because they’re not in preferable areas for them.
We’ve always said – and we put an extra $10 million into the community facilities fund this year – we have always said we back 100% more funding going to community sports. And but it’s got to be merit based, because there’s so many places in Tasmania that just haven’t heard from the Liberals, or the Labor Party politicians about their promises at this election. They will miss out they, haven’t had a say.
Tasmanian Times
Today’s World Water Day; I’ve been celebrating, I had a shower this morning. But seriously for something which is so critical to not just human life, but all life on this planet, we actually haven’t talked much about water in this campaign in Tasmania. What are some of the issues that you’re aware of?
Rosalie Woodruff
The Greens have been the only party at this election, the only people who are standing up and talking about protecting nature, having strong environment laws, making sure we get real climate action by ending the massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that come from native forest logging and burning every year.
The Greens were the only party that has raised the flag, a serious concern about the state of our waterways, rivers across Tasmania, the absolute failure under the Liberals for the last decade to do any planning, measuring or mitigation around the desperate situation with our rivers. We have dramatically reduced water volumes, it is having an impact on the environment is having an impact on irrigators and people who rely on water.
Journalist – Elliott
It’s not a fair distribution as it’s being managed at the moment. We pushed for a proper inquiry into this and we will keep advocating, because water is life, it is precious. We need to do everything we can to understand that we’ve got to protect our rivers, and be much clearer about who’s getting water and what the charging and the fairness of the distribution of water will be.
Rosalie Woodruff
Another major part of our campaign has been to have stronger environmental laws, including an EPA – an Environment Protection Authority – with teeth. And as it stands at the moment, we have an EPA that’s not able to get in there, not able to stop the levels of pollution going into rivers from industrial scale fish farms. It’s having a detrimental effect on people’s health, on the downstream quality of water of many of our major rivers. That’s a critical change that we are committed to fighting to make at the next term of Parliament.
Journalist – Elliott
Where do you stand on HACSU members taking stop-work action over the industrial Commission’s decision on the ramping ban?
Rosalie Woodruff
We understand the desperate feeling of paramedics and other members of HACSU about the situation with ambulance ramping.
I spoke to a discharge officer yesterday who told me that last Monday night was the worst since the worst situation he talked about in the ambulance ramping enquiry. It is truly concerning. The number of paramedics who are not able to attend a shift is a crisis. And the sort of response that the government is providing is wholly inadequate.
That’s why the Greens announced a 50-point plan that recognises the complexity of fixing the health crisis and puts money into all the parts of the system that are needed: prevention, on to nurses and paramedics and extra staff, increasing the hospital capacity and increasing the patient flow through the hospital and also discharge planning at the other end. It’s a whole system approach that’s needed.
We fully back HACSU and their members who understand that the Liberal government has been pitting union against union, staff member against staff member, patients against their own PR machine. It’s really a terrible situation and we thank and acknowledge HACSU and their members for doing everything they can to bring the reality to Tasmanians.
Journalist – Elliott
Could this situation have been avoided with better consultation with both those unions?
Rosalie Woodruff
The ANMF and HACSU have been calling for at least five years to have planning about the increasing pressures on the emergency departments and Ambulance, Tasmania. And they have not been listened to for five years. It took the Greens initiating an ambulance ramping inquiry that has cracked open the harsh reality of what’s happening in Tasmania’s health system.
It’s shown that improvements and change is possible. And that’s our message: change is possible. But we won’t see it under this Liberal government and it’s only the Greens who are committed to really fighting to get the investment into that and listen to unions and work with them to make the changes that we need to improve the health system.
