Transcript of media conference with Labor Deputy Leader Dean Winter at Moonah, 15 March 2024.

Dean Winter

The Liberals tonight will be celebrating in their penguin suits. And unfortunately for most Tasmanians, this is a time to reflect on what’s been a bunch of failures over 10 years. The Liberals said that we’d be the healthiest state by 2025. It’s 2024 and we’re the least healthy state. They said that there’d be single statewide planning scheme, we still don’t have one. They said that our education results will be comparable with the rest of the nation and we don’t have that either. In fact, education results are worse now than they were in 2008.

Every reform they’ve attempted has failed. And our economy is now going backwards. After 10 years of Liberals, it’s time for change.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Is that a bit of an indictment on the Labour Party that these guys are as bad as what you’re saying they are, and yet you’re 16 points behind them?

Dean Winter

The feedback I’m getting out there on the doors is very positive. We’ve had a huge campaign in terms of announcing the policies that are actually going to address some of the issues, the biggest issues in Tasmania at the moment: the cost of living crisis, the health crisis and the housing crisis.

Over the course of the last three or four weeks, we’ve outlined solutions for all of those problems. And this has been based on years of work around policies to try and address these challenges. On housing, for example, the Liberals called a housing crisis meeting in 2018, said there was a housing crisis and since then, things have only got worse. And today they’re standing up with Will Hodgman, the person who called the housing crisis summit, and they didn’t fix it and he walked away.

Tasmanians have got to wonder when they see Will Hodgman. When they elected Will Hodgman in 2018 they got Peter Gutwein. When they elected Peter Gutwein they got Jeremy Rockliff. If they are going to elect Jeremy Rockliff, there is a very high likelihood they’ll get Eric Abetz after the election.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

Further to Josh’s question, though, is there a risk of being too negative? I mean, even you would concede in some ways there have been some positive strides for the state over the last 10 years, the way we’re sort of viewed from a tourism and economic point of view. Do you concede that some things have improved, it’s not all doom and gloom?

Dean Winter

Unfortunately, latest economic stats show that our economy is going backwards, our economy is actually shrinking. It’s showing that our health system is worse than ever, and showing that education results for our students are getting worse. These are big issues in Tasmania, where we’re seeing the cost of living rising and getting out of control. Tasmanians for a hundred years have known that they’d pay a Tasmanian price for Tasmanian power. But this election, the Liberals are taking us to the point where power prices are going up by 22 and a half percent, and they have no solutions to solve it. It’s only Tasmania labour that’s putting forward the solutions that deal with the cost of living crisis, the health crisis and the housing crisis, which has been in crisis now for seven years.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Those 10 years, these figures have been characterised as a quite moderate Liberal leadership. Do you think that’s the direction the next four years potentially or 10 years, given there’s talk about Michael Ferguson and potentially Eric Abetz as well?

Dean Winter

According to Luke Edmunds MLC, it’s a stuck-in-the-mud cake.

I think the time for the moderate Liberals is over, the last you’ll see of them is today with Will Hodgman and Jeremy Rockliff. The takeover is on. Eric Abetz is coming and he’s not coming to sit on the back bench. He’s not coming to sit on the front bench. Eric Abetz is coming to try and become premier of this state.

Tasmanians need to understand that that if they elect the Liberals at this election, there is a very real chance that Eric Abetz will be the next premier of Tasmania.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

What will you do in the last nine, eight days of the campaign to make sure you don’t go back to the opposition benches? It must be something within you, within your colleagues and party room to drive you, you don’t really want another four years in opposition do you?

Dean Winter

The message for Tasmanians is the only way to ensure that your vote will change the government is to vote for Labour. The independents and the Greens are saying that they are prepared to do deals with the Liberals. And that’s a risk for Tasmanians. The polls are showing that the vast majority of Tasmania is do not want the Liberals back again. And that’s what we’re hearing on the doors. But the way to change the government is to vote for Labour at this election.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

You hear – I heard this morning from someone in the know – that all might not be well in the Labor camp. Some people have sort of clocked off from campaigning. Is the drive still there?

Dean Winter

That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We are working our absolute guts out because we know that Tasmania needs to change. All the members are out door-knocking every single day. And to be frank I don’t see the Liberals door knocking. That’s what we do. Labor campaigns and Labor candidates door knock we speak to real people every day. And that’s what we’ll keep doing right up until 6pm on Saturday, we will be campaigning as hard as we can.

Tasmanian Times

If you could travel forward to 2034, after ten years of a Labor government what would Tasmania look like?

Dean Winter

Great question. Our vision for Tasmania’s economy is for energy to be right at the center of it. We want to grow energy generation in this state. We want to build more wind farms, solar farms, we want to create more generation so that we can create more jobs here on island. That’s our economic vision for the state. We want to have an education system that operates and gives every child the best chance in life. We want to have a health system where when someone calls an ambulance, they know that one will actually turn up.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

There seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction on the stadium issue in the north and the northwest. You see comments you hear it on talk-back radio. Why hasn’t Labor been able to capitalise on that? Is it you’ve got a muddled message on the stadium?

Dean Winter

Well, we’ve been focusing on the core issues that Tasmania’s keep telling us about: cost of living crisis, health crisis, education, and housing crisis. We’ve been proposing education policies, childcare policies that for working families are telling us is causing them not to be able to go to work and adding to the cost of living crisis. We are focused on the priorities of Tasmanians and not on the priorities of Jeremy Rockliff.

Jeremy Rockliff is obsessed by this stadium. This is the only thing that appears to matter to him. What we’re worried about are the priorities of Tasmanians, which is health, housing and cost of living.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

When someone says to you on the doors, ‘what’s Labour’s position on the stadium?’ what do you say?

Dean Winter

We’ve been saying we will renegotiate the deal. We need to renegotiate the deal in the best interest of Tasmanians. Everyone I speak to – no matter what you support – can see that there are serious issues with the deal that Jeremy Rockliff signed. He didn’t take it to Treasury, he didn’t take it to cabinet. And he has left us effectively with a blank cheque to the AFL on this deal.

His claim that the $375 million is capped is bogus. He has not capped the cost and there isn’t a private investor ready to walk in because if there was one, they would have announced it by now. Two years after they announced the stadium for the first time, there are still no designs for it. There is no idea of who’s going to pay for the stadium. And yet he wants to keep talking about it and obsessing over it. We’re focused on the basics for Tasmanians, which is the health, housing, cost of living crisis

Journalist – Alex Johnston

Further to Alan’s question, in 10 years time who is the Labor Premier? Is it you or Rebecca White or Josh Willie or –

Dean Winter

I’m looking forward to a very long Rebecca White government.

Journalist – David Killick

Going into this election the polls show Labor’s behind, the chances of forming government seem to be fading rather than progressing, [inaudible]

Dean Winter

Oppositions are almost always the underdogs in every election. We accept being the underdog because all the time that’s what Labor does, we fight. And we’ll fight and fight and fight until election day. We’ll fight for communities, like Risdon Vale today, where they’ve heard that their local doctor may be leaving. We’ll fight for communities right across Tasmania who have had enough of the government who want to change. And our message to them is if you want change, you need to vote for Labour.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

I was looking back at the polling before the 2014 election yesterday and noticed that the Liberals tended to be out-polling Labor by 10 to 15 points for pretty much that entire government. Do you look at that situation and what we’re in now and go ‘oh, maybe the parallels aren’t there around a major change of government’?

Dean Winter

Let’s be clear about what’s happening in the polls. The Liberals have fallen by about 13 points. They’ve gone from a majority government to now looking looking like things are very difficult for them. They have had an extremely difficult three years where they’ve lost member after member where there’s been crisis after crisis. We’ve had Elise Archer, we’ve had Lara Alexander and John Tucker. We’ve had Jane Howlett, we’ve had the loss of Peter Gutwein, we’ve had the loss of Sarah Courtney, this has been crisis after crisis after crisis for the Liberal Party. And it’s borne out by Tasmanians who are saying they’re ready for a change.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

But again, does that not beg the question? If there’s such a crisis over there, why is Labour polling at 23 to 25 to 28%?

Dean Winter

Look, we are really confident in the conversations we’re having in the community. On the doors are people telling us they’re ready for change. It is important in the last week that we explain to them, that the only way they’re going to change the government is to vote for Labour this election.

Journalist – Alex Johnston

The Greens are in the southwest wilderness today talking about tourism and how it needs to be obviously a light very, very light touch, we need to protect our wild places. What’s Labor’s ideology when it comes to tourism opportunities in wild spaces?

Dean Winter

It’s a bit rich for the for the Greens to talk about tourism opportunities in the south. It was the Greens that knocked off the Transformer project at the Huon Valley Council, that is the main reason why Transformer is not up and running today and attracting thousands of tourists to the far south. We support a growing thriving tourism industry in this state. We’ve released our policies around that. And we look forward to to the election where that can be considered.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Do you concede that some of the ideas the Greens had decades ago in protecting the most wild places have actually been proven to be good policy in the way that we’re viewed because of our natural resources?

Dean Winter

We’ve been watching the Greens oppose tourism opportunities for a long time now, opposing opening up of tracks that let people actually come in to see our wilderness, Bob Brown opposing the building of huts so that people can come and actually enjoy it. It’s one thing to have the vision but it’s another thing to actually talk and actually action things. And the Greens over the course of the last 10 years have been holding the Tasmanian economy back.

Tasmanian Times

The first version I saw of one of your attack ads just had the Liberal logo and then various messages bagging them. I’ve seen an updated version as of last night, the Liberal logo is now has a rubbish bin behind and a banana peel at the bottom.

Dean Winter

On the telly? I haven’t seen this.

Tasmanian Times

Is that an admission the first version wasn’t good?

Dean Winter

Mate I haven’t seen it I’m sorry.

 

Luke Edmunds and Dean Winter opening anniversary presents for the Liberals.

Media release – Jeremy Rockliff, Premier, Minister for State Development, Trade and the Antarctic, Minister for Tourism and Hospitality, Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Member for Braddon, 15 March 2024

Ten Years Of Liberal Government – Extending High Schools To Year 12

Premier, Jeremy Rockliff, and former Premier, Will Hodgman, today travelled to Huon High School to reflect on today’s 10 year anniversary of the election of the Liberals in 2014.

“Today marks 10 years since we were elected to Government,” Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.

“As I reflect on how far Tasmanian has come under Liberal Governments, there is one policy that I am most proud of – and that’s our extension of all Tasmanian high schools.

“This is the single biggest improvement to education this generation, and as the Minister and now Premier who led the charge on this reform, it is by far my proudest achievement.

“As a result of this policy, in the past decade more than 7,500 young Tasmanians have studied year 11 and 12 at their local high school, who otherwise may not have done so.

“At one of the first extension schools in 2015, at Huonville High the percentage of students who achieved a TCE was 48 per cent a decade ago, and that’s at 67 per cent in the most recent stats.

“Across the board, retention from year 10 to year 12 has increased by six per cent and we’re now doing better than the national average, with 76.1 per cent compared with Australia at 73.5 per cent.

“This is not only transforming this generation of Tasmanians, it will continue to be transformative for generations to come.

“We have broken a generational cycle that entrenched disadvantage and unlocked all the opportunities that come with a good education.”

Former Premier, Will Hodgman, said that when the Liberals came to Government in 2014, Tasmania was the only State in the nation that didn’t offer years 11 and 12 in our high schools.

“It created a huge cultural misconception that when you finished year 10 that your education was done, and that was a huge disservice and disadvantage to Tasmanians,” Mr Hodgman said.

“It was worse still in regional Tasmania where even more young Tasmanians fell through the cracks, because distance or disadvantage were seemingly insurmountable barriers.

“We knew that Tasmanians deserved so much more. Tasmanians deserved every opportunity in the world, no matter where they lived or what their parent’s income was.

“So, over a decade ago we laid out a clear plan to extend very Tasmanian high school to year 11 and 12 by 2022 – and we delivered exactly that, 58 high schools extended.

“Now, every young Tasmanian – no matter where they live – can stay and study in their community, with more choice than ever before.”