Media release – Dean Winter MP, Labor Leader, 28 July 2024
Rockliff’s anti-development group flexes its muscles
Labor stand for jobs and I want to see our state grow. I want more housing and better education outcomes.
I make no apologies for backing a $500 million science and technology facility and 2,000 new homes. I support the university’s other developments too. The $131 million Forestry Building will be an incredible place to learn. The Shed in Launceston will support thousands of students.
The fact is, by the time the new Forestry Building is completed UTAS will have invested $700 million into new education facilities. Two thirds of the university’s staff and students will be in the city. Why would anyone oppose developing its vacant land for housing, and using the proceeds to fund another world-class science and technology centre?
The usual suspects are the ones opposing these developments. Greg Barns and the “Save” UTAS group want the university to retreat from its $700 million education investment and go back into its shell at Sandy Bay. They’ve been upfront that they don’t want $500 million worth of new science and technology facilities either.
“Save” UTAS represents the same mindset that continues to hold our state back – and these are the people who Jeremy Rockliff is now teamed up with. They have been emboldened by the Premier’s plan because they know his plan means ‘no’ to 2,000 new homes and ‘no’ to a $500 million science and technology facility.
We need a state government with conviction to lead and sell the benefits of positive change. Five thousand jobs have been lost since Jeremy Rockliff led his Government into minority and Tasmania has tumbled down the national economic rankings. It is decisions like freezing the university’s housing and education developments that are causing it.
Business is rightly up in arms, standing with Labor to call for the legislation to be abandoned.
By standing with the Greens and the anti-everything crowd, Jeremy Rockliff has made it clear that Labor is the only pro-jobs, pro-development, future-focused party in Tasmania today.
Media release – Save UTAS, 28 July 2024
LABOR ACCUSED OF TREATING VOTERS AS FOOLS OVER UTAS
SaveUTAS has released an information sheet which savages Labor and labels many of Labor’s recent announcements as ‘lies’.
The information sheet identifies 7 key claims by Labor which SaveUTAS says are ‘completely false’. The information sheet is intended to inform voters but particularly parliamentarians who will be considering the government’s University of Tasmania (Protection of Land) Bill.
SaveUTAS co-chair Angela Bird said, “Has a Tasmanian political party ever stooped so low? It’s despicable to deceive people into thinking the Sandy Bay campus can be quickly converted into 2000 homes and hundreds of millions of dollars for STEM facilities when in actual fact the necessary rezoning process would take years and may never succeed. Tasmania needs new homes and a refurbished uni now, not in a few years’ time”.
SaveUTAS is calling on UTAS to sell its extensive city properties so much-needed homes can be built on them. Ms Bird said, “These sites are empty or rented out. They are ‘shovel-ready’. Builders could start work immediately, without waiting years to see whether a rezoning is approved”.
SaveUTAS is particularly critical that Labor plans to make refurbishing of UTAS STEM facilities dependent on the uncertain outcome of a long Sandy Bay rezoning process. Ms Bird said, “With the sale of UTAS city properties refurbishment of STEM at Sandy Bay could start this year. Labor’s plan leaves young Tasmanians high and dry for years”.
Ms Bird said it was a mystery as to why Labor, after years of disinterest, had suddenly become excited about a plan which she said effectively died when UTAS withdrew its 2021 campus rezoning application in the face of 155 objections raised by the Hobart City Council.
This wasn’t UTAS’ first rezoning failure. In 2017 UTAS applied to rezone parts of the upper campus but that was rejected by the Tasmanian Planning Commission and UTAS then lost a subsequent appeal in the Supreme Court.
Ms Bird said that Labor’s newfound interest may have something to with the need for its new leader, Dean Winter, to raise his profile. She said, “We asked Labor not to use UTAS in order to score political points. Sadly, for higher education in Tasmania, our request fell on deaf ears”.
Media release – Shane Broad MP, Shadow Minister for Housing, 26 July 2024
New figures show why we can’t pass on 2,000 new homes
Today’s housing dashboard figures reinforce what we already knew about the Liberals – they are massively failing to deliver on their housing promises, and they can’t be trusted to deliver on any of their announcements.
Buildings approved in the year to May 2024 was 2,587, which is 20 per cent lower than the number of approvals in the year to May 2023. Dashboard numbers also show 4,709 Tasmanians are waiting for social housing.
The Liberals set a target to build 10,000 new homes by 2032, but earlier this month, Housing Minister Felix Ellis was forced to admit that the Liberals had only built six homes in six years under the “fast-track” housing policy, while also confessing that they were counting vacant blocks of land towards their new build target.
Short of counting tents and cars in that target, the Liberals are set to fail miserably against that goal and let down Tasmanians yet again.
Under these circumstances, it makes no sense for the Liberals and their anti-development alliance partners, the Greens to oppose the construction of 2,000 new homes and block the UTAS Sandy Bay development.
Tasmanians need every new home we can build. The Liberal-Lambie Coalition needs to get out of the way of nearly 2,000 homes being built at the UTAS Sandy Bay campus to help to alleviate our housing problems.
