Media release – Josh Willie MP, Shadow Treasurer, 11 December 2024
Liberals welch on local content commitment
Premier Jeremy Rockliff has missed his own deadline, failing to update Tasmanians about his local content commitment to our new Spirit of Tasmania vessels.
A motion passed by parliament last month sought to obtain “a list of local content spending to date for the new Spirits and the total value of those purchases”.
Labor wanted the information to be tabled by 5pm on 28 November, but the Liberals, along with crossbenchers Miriam Beswick, Rebecca Pentland, Craig Garland, Andrew Jenner and David O’Byrne amended the motion to push this date back until 5pm on 10 December.
Now the silence is deafening, not only from the Liberals but from the crossbenchers who let the government off the hook – not supporting a House of Assembly enquiry and not ordering the government to table the documents in Parliament.
Getting information out of the Premier and his government throughout this extraordinary Spirits fiasco has been like getting blood from a stone.
The Premier still hasn’t been able to adequately explain how his farcical plan to lease the ships won’t put the local fit out, local jobs and local businesses at risk.
Does he plan to complete the fit out in Scotland, and then complete it again when the Spirits finally arrive in Tasmania? And if not, what will he tell the local contractors who have been relying on his final fit out promise?
Tasmanians have learned that you can’t trust the Liberals. If the Premier has nothing to hide like he claims, why does he keep on obstructing the truth from getting out?
Media release – Eric Abetz, Minister for Transport, 11 December 2024
Labor lies
The Tasmanian Government provided an update on TT-Line’s local content program to the Parliament by 5pm on December 10.
The weak opposition leader, Dean Winter, and his wannabe deputy, Josh Willie, continue to blatantly mislead Tasmanians.
While Labor continues to peddle misinformation on the Spirits for its own political aim of destablising the state, the Tasmanian Government is getting on with the job.
Media release – Josh Willie MP, Shadow Treasurer, 11 December 2024
Liberals show why they tried to hide “local” content update
It’s little wonder the Liberals did their best to hide their Spirits local content update from Tasmanians.
A quick glance at the list of suppliers shows that the government is counting companies such as Apple and a range of other businesses with no apparent link to Tasmania in their local content tally.
It’s a bit like counting vacant blocks of land towards the social housing target – which the Liberals have also been caught red-handed doing.
When the Liberals first made their local content commitment, Tasmanian businesses would have been buoyed thinking they meant uniquely Tasmanian. Today, after realising it wasn’t a Tasmanian commitment at all, they will feel deflated and let down.
The TCCI has said the Liberals’ handling of the Spirits debacle will make it hard for businesses to ever trust the Rockliff Government again.
Yet again, they have been proven right.
