Media release – Guy Barnett, Treasurer, 5 March 2025

Labor stands for higher taxes

Labor will raise taxes and charges as their budget management strategy.

Admitting in Parliament this morning, the Labor Leader opposed all fiscal measures outlined in the Government’s State of the State Address, confirming they will inflict new or increased higher taxes and charges on Tasmanians.

After spending months pretending to be the friends of business, the façade has fallen away once again ignoring the business community’s desire to put Tasmania’s economy first and support these ambitious future-looking reforms.

The Tasmanian Liberal Government took a clear position to the election outlining no new or increased taxes. Labor refused to say the same.

Today they must fess up. What taxes and charges will they introduce and increase?

Efficiency and Productivity Unit to drive better service delivery

A new Efficiency and Productivity Unit (EPU) will be established to drive better service delivery across the State Service.

Treasurer, Guy Barnett, said the Government firmly believed that Tasmania needs to have the right-sized public service – one that operates as effectively and efficiently as possible, meets the needs of the community and provides value for money.

“We are focussed on increasing productivity to achieve better service delivery for Tasmanians,” the Treasurer said.

The Unit – as foreshadowed in the Premier’s State of the State Address – will be tasked with undertaking a comprehensive audit of all Government programs to ensure that the State Service is focused on things that matter to Tasmanians.

“We must ensure that every dollar spent is value for taxpayer money and we are not wasting resources on things that are not the priority,” the Treasurer said.

“This Unit will enable us to structure Government more efficiently by better managing the capabilities and capacity of the workforce.

“By refocusing the State Service on the areas that Tasmanians deem a priority, we will deliver service improvements for all Tasmanians in the areas they care about, like health, education, and child safety – without the need for additional spending.

“It’s what Tasmanians expect and deserve.

“We will also be working with the State Service to increase productivity and better focus the capacity and capabilities of the workforce, including through digital innovation.”

In Economist Saul Eslake’s recent report to Government it was recommended that evaluation into the efficiency and effectiveness of individual spending programs should occur as part of its ongoing management of the budget.

The EPU will report directly to the Premier and Treasurer.

The Government will appoint the members of the Unit shortly.

Labor plans to slug Tasmanians with higher charges

The Opposition Leader’s State of the State Reply has revealed his secret plan to hike up charges across the board.

Mr Winter says his plan to balance the budget is to make Government Businesses ‘more profitable’.

That’s code for higher power prices, higher car rego, higher bus fares and higher charges.

In a rant of relentless negativity, the Opposition Leader presented no alternative vision Tasmania, only offer a promise for higher charges across every part of life, by ‘making GBEs more profitable”.

Mr Winter has chosen a path of higher charges, rather than listen to the business community’s pleas to support our Government’s ambitious plan that invests in Tasmania’s future.

Only the Tasmanian Liberal Government has a sensible pathway to surplus, that will also grow our economy while backing business and jobs.

Media release – Vica Bayley MP, Greens Treasury spokesperson, 5 March 2024

Rockliff Admits Even Wider Privatisation Agenda

As if the privatisation agenda Jeremy Rockliff announced yesterday wasn’t bad enough, now he’s made the disturbing admission that, other than Hydro, he is considering the sale of every single Government Business Enterprise and State-Owned Company.

The Greens were pretty suss on what the Premier said in his State of the State speech yesterday. It looked to us like he was dangling the sale of a couple of public companies as a distraction, when his real agenda was looking at the whole range of GBEs and SOCs.

Our fears were confirmed this morning after we asked the Premier to rule out selling off any GBE other than Hydro. Rather than ruling out the sale of any of the other 13 public companies, he instead said outright he would consider the sale of all of them.

The Premier is saying he is looking at selling the lot. This includes critically important agencies like Aurora, TasPorts and TT Line. Even the state financer, TasCorp, is on the table.

Any privatisation of public assets and services is concerning, but such a broadscale approach is alarming and dangerous. After all, privatisation has real impacts on the community because it leads to higher prices and worse services.

The Liberals have clearly created a big budget problem, but rather than selling out Tasmanians, they should be scrapping their plans for a billion-dollar stadium.

Media release – Kristie Johnston, independent MHA for Clark, 5 March 2025

PS Hiring Grinds To A Halt

The Acting Secretary of the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management yesterday sent an email to all staff (see below).

The Acting Secretary said the Department was working to understand the government’s hiring freeze.

The Department told staff: “Recruitment processes already underway but not at the stage where an offer has been made/accepted will be paused.”

Clearly all recruitment will halt until you’ve figured out who is essential and who is non-essential.

Meantime, important services are impacted. Talented potential recruits will be left high and dry. Recruitment resources have been wasted.

Will the Treasurer admit his hiring freeze policy is impacting negatively on all public servants and all services Tasmanians rely on?

And will he admit the claim of targeting only non-essential workers is nothing but a PR sham?

And will

  • probably cost more money than it saves,
  • And slow down service delivery for Tasmanians.

Media release – Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), 5 March2025 

HANDS OFF OUR METRO!

Following the ‘State of the State’ address in parliament yesterday, RTBU Secretary Byron Cubit has today called on Premier Jeremy Rockliffe to abandon any considerations to privatise Metro Tasmania.

“This is an admission the Tasmanian Liberal Government has no real answers to issues of its own creation and has abandoned governing the state,” Mr Cubit said.

“Metro is owned by the people of Tasmania and is operated for the people of Tasmania. Public transport needs to stay in public hands.”

Mr Cubit says that this government has no mandate for asset sales.

“When Tasmanian voters went to the polls last year there was not a whisper around asset sales,” Mr Cubit said.

“Instead, this government has deliberately harpooned Metro’s funding for over a decade, which led to the bus driver shortage.

“The government is now looking for a scapegoat for its own budgetary and policy failures.”

Mr Cubit said privatising Metro will not work.

“It would lead to service reductions and cost increases for passengers,” he said.

“It would also lead to reductions in pay and conditions for workers during a bus driver shortage, creating a major risk to the overall viability of the public transport system in Tasmania.

“Keep your hands off our Metro!”

Media release – Josh Willie MP, Shadow Treasurer, 5 March 2025

Premier confirms he plans to sell Tasmania’s future

Premier Jeremy Rockliff has failed to guarantee that his fire sale of state-owned assets for a short-term budget sugar hit won’t lead to increased user costs, decreased services and impact Tasmania’s ability to fund schools and hospitals.

In a desperate attempt to re-write history, the Premier also extraordinarily claimed his fire sale was required because of the budget situation Tasmania has “found itself in”.

Tasmania’s finances are in the position they are in for one reason, and for one reason only. Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals can’t manage money and they have completely wrecked the budget.

But instead of taking responsibility for his budget mismanagement, the Premier wants Tasmanians to bail him out.

Privatisation leads to increased user costs and decreased services. The Premier couldn’t rule out higher bus fares, higher power prices and more expensive car registration fees which is the last thing Tasmanians can afford right now.

Our state-owned assets also provide critical funding to schools and hospitals. Flogging them off for a short-term sugar hit will cause long-term pain for Tasmanians already facing.

Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals have proven they can’t manage money, and the Premier has confirmed that it’s Tasmanians who will have to pay the price.

Utter desperation from a government that’s lost control

Labor does not support new or increased taxes.

Claims from the Premier and Treasurer Barnett to the contrary are desperate, pathetic, and wrong.

The only political party with plans to introduce new taxes are the Liberals and their coalition of independents, who advocate for new revenue raising measures during a cost of living crisis.

They went to the last election promising a new tourism tax. Higher car regos from privatisation are a new tax, higher power prices from selling off renewable energy assets is a new tax, and higher bus fares from selling Metro is a new tax.

After inheriting zero net debt from Labor in 2014, the Liberals have completely lost control of the state’s finances. Respected independent economist Saul Eslake has been unequivocal that the current mess is entirely due to the decision of this Liberal government.

The Tasmanian budget is in this precarious position for one reason, and one reason only – Premier Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals can’t manage money.

They are in no position to criticise anyone when it comes to the state budget.

Media release – Dean Winter MP, Labor Leader, 5 March 2025

State of the State response (excerpt)

Under my leadership, the Labor Party has listened and has changed.

We are back as the party of jobs and economic development.

We are back in the business of building things.

We are proudly pro-development, pro-business and pro-workers.

And we are the party of responsible financial management in Tasmanian politics today.

The Liberals, in contrast, have run out of road.

After 11 years in office, they’ve run out of good ideas or the ability to get things done.

They have shredded their credibility through their stuff ups with the Spirits.

They’ve forfeited their right to govern this state through their disastrous mismanagement of Tasmania’s finances.

And their only plan for the future is to privatise our assets and put up the price of power, car rego and bus fares.

In their place I offer Tasmanians new leadership.

I offer a renewed Labor Party.

With a plan and a vision for the future.

To deliver the change Tasmania needs.

Editor’s note: We asked. The Labor office. For the full text. And. Haven’t Received. It. It will be on Hansard. Eventually.

Media release – Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), 5 March 2025

Tasmania’s allied health professionals under attack by government’s hiring freeze

The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) is calling on Treasurer Guy Barnett to explain why the Tasmanian government considers the state’s allied health professionals “non-essential” workers.

While his announcement this week of a public sector hiring freeze (the government’s code word for job cuts) exempted doctors, nurses, paramedics, police, and teachers, vital allied health professionals were notably excluded from the exemptions.

Allied health professionals, like physiotherapists, hospital pharmacists, occupational therapists, sonographers and speech pathologists, provide essential services that directly impact patient recovery, rehabilitation and quality of life.

HACSU State Secretary Robbie Moore describes the hiring freeze as an attack on Tasmania’s hospitals and health services and is urging the Treasurer to reconsider his decision.

“Every Tasmanian should be alarmed about what more cuts to our already over-stretched health system and community services will mean for them, their family and their neighbours,” he said.

“Many allied health professions in Tasmania are already facing workforce shortages, and a hiring freeze will only exacerbate these issues, leading to longer wait times and reduced access to care and crucial services.”

Following this week’s announcement, HACSU met with the State Service Management Office to seek clarification on what roles are affected, but neither the Treasurer nor the Head of the State Service attended the meeting.

HACSU is now demanding an urgent meeting with the Treasurer to not only explain what this announcement means for health and community services workers, but to guarantee allied health workers that their professions will be exempt from hiring freezes.

Featured comment – Simon Warriner, 5 March 2025

— untitled —

Here is a story that encapsulates the witless incompetence of the past decade, and more, of our Liberal government …

Rockcliff knew about the bullying problem at the Tasmania Fire Service at least four years before it burst into public awareness. I know because I told him personally at a Wynyard Show. He could have acted to address the issue but didn’t, because “there was no stomach in the Liberal Party for an inquiry of that nature, Simon.” (Thanks, MHA Jaensch, for letting me know.)

Instead, his party chose to promote the TFS HR manager, under whose long reign that bullying culture flourished, to run Worksafe. Worksafe is the organisation that TFS employees are forced to lodge bullying complaints with. Worksafe takes 6 months to simply ‘assess’ (not investigate, mind you) and they do that without bothering to interview the complainant or talk to any of the complainant’s witnesses.

Fast forward a few years and the bullying has got so bad that it is now threatening the viability of the volunteer cohort without which the TFS is incapable of providing the service it purports to offer.

The government response has been to appoint an outside consultant, at huge cost, to investigate the culture and recommend actions to fix the problem. Perhaps it should have first asked the former HR manager around for a chat, or do they know that her appointment was based on something other than her competence? ‘

Surely, after more than a decade working with TFS managers, it is not unreasonable to expect some view would have been formed as to the issues and solutions.

If this sort of bumbling, incompetent failure to take timely action to resolve simple problems, and rewarding demonstrated failure, has been rinsed and repeated throughout the past decade or so of Liberal government – and I suspect it has – then there is a tidal wave of liability that will take a nation’s worth of Metro bus lines sales to fund.

The time for consequences has arrived, and the first must surely be to send the current government into oblivion. It has demonstrated, beyond doubt, a clear inability to manage the state service and to set responsible priorities.

On State of the State Address 2025 …