Address-in-Reply: Premier’s State of the State Address 2021
Ms WEBB (Nelson) – Mr President, I rise to respond to and note the Premier’s state of the state address. The COVID-19 pandemic dominates and frames the delivery of the Premier’s annual address and the response of many of us within this parliament.
A year ago on 17 February 2020, Tasmania issued the first coronavirus-driven Public Health emergency declaration. A year ago on 19 March 2020, Tasmania issued the first coronavirus-driven state emergency declaration, which remains in place over a year later. To echo the Premier’s acknowledgement in his address, we cannot forget the sacrifices made during that time, and those which continue to be made by many Tasmanians, their families and communities.
Further, we must acknowledge the 13 Tasmanian lives tragically lost due to COVID-19 over this period. A health crisis widely described as unprecedented spiralled into also becoming an equally unprecedented social and economic crisis. Obviously, there is no blueprint for how to best contend with an unprecedented crisis, let alone one on a global scale, and one which continues to exist over a year later.
Tasmania is not alone in that our state emergency infrastructure is geared for short, sharp emergencies more in line with natural disasters. Even terrorist attacks are factored in as having a finite active duration with the emphasis being on recovery. Another commonality shared by all the possible emergency scenarios for which our emergency response infrastructure and plans focused is the assumption that there is a normal to which we can return.
We all know that this pandemic has upturned permanently any sense of returning to a pre-COVID normality. It is not going to happen and that is our collective challenge as a community and here as an elected representative microcosm of that community to carve out an equitable, inclusive and livable post-pandemic normal. We will only be successful in achieving this new goal by recognising that the status quo is neither practical nor even desirable within our brave new post-pandemic world and learning from what we have been exposed to. We need to identify and act upon the strength and weaknesses this shared pandemic experience has exposed.
As members of this place will recall, I proposed last year – and the majority of this Chamber supported – a joint House committee to be established not only to provide appropriate oversight during a time where public health considerations required protracted shutdown of parliament, but also a mechanism by which to capture the community’s experiences and develop a real time knowledge repository for what does and does not work when confronted with an unprecedented crisis, such as a pandemic.
We knew then the pandemic, however long it lasted, would expose structural, social fragilities, fault lines, as well as unexpected strengths. The health of our community emerging from the crisis in the immediate through to the long term would depend on how coherently and comprehensively we identified and acted upon these fragilities and fault lines and how well we harnessed those strengths. I proposed a parliamentary mechanism to provide transparency, accountability, and community ownership of that process.
Instead, the Premier established his Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council consisting of his captain’s pick of community leaders to develop an interim and longer five-year recovery plan. The Premier’s Address, therefore, unsurprisingly reflects the final report of PESRAC; similarly, my response to the Premier’s Address will also examine elements of the PESRAC contribution.
We know the PESRAC interim report’s 64 recommendations were accepted in full by Government upon its release last year. Now we are told the Government is committed to accepting all 52 recommendations contained in the final report. This immediate response from the Premier set some alarm bells ringing for me, Mr President. Why be alarmed when such an agreement by government would appear to be a positive move?
As already stated, PESRAC was set an extraordinary challenge: how to revitalise, reinvigorate and restructure a Tasmania emerging from an unprecedented challenge? Submission after submission made to the PESRAC process recognised that ‘there is no going back to the way things were.’.
This was more than adapting to a ‘new normal’. There were myriad calls to use this period to reset, reimagine and redefine Tasmania’s opportunities, who we are as a community and where we are going as a community. Hence the community could be forgiven for expecting that PESRAC would present new, novel, far-reaching and challenging initiatives that would take some time to digest and be considered by government.
The very fact that there could be a swift acceptance of 52 of the final report’s recommendations causes a degree of concern that the PESRAC recommendations were perhaps not as challenging as the circumstances that prompted PESRAC’s formation in the first place, and that instead the report presents more of the same, that it perpetuates a status quo. This seems inconceivable, given the task, and the involvement, of the highly dedicated and skilled participants at all levels of that process, but it does appear that the majority of the report’s focus is on shoring-up the status quo.
A perceived advantage of an accountable and transparent COVID-19 parliamentary committee process was the capacity to help reassure the community that any push to run ideological agendas under the cover of COVID-19 would be identified and placed within a context of other goals and criteria. If there were gaps in focus and emphasis, there would be mechanisms to exercise accountability on a parliamentary committee. The public would be able to follow the discussions through public hearings, as well as access submissions in real time, for example.
If issues and matters were put forward but left unaddressed or received an overly weighted hearing from the committee, this could have been seen and followed. Instead, as a point of contrast, the 79 PESRAC submissions to phase 2 – which includes a preparation of a final report – only became available sometime between noon and 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 23 March, some seven days after both the Premier’s Address and the release of the PESRAC final report on 16 March.
This leads me to one of the key disappointing and worrying aspects of the Premier’s Address given it was so closely based upon the PESRAC final report. By the report’s, and hence the Premier’s Address as well to some degree, almost default position that the status quo could and should be maintained has resulted in key considerations and serious aspects being left unaddressed or at least inadequately addressed.
I do not have time to go into all those omitted considerations in detail; instead I will characterise them as the glossing-over of the very real and apparent social structural fragilities and fault lines that the pandemic had exposed within the Tasmanian community and economy, particularly those fault lines impacting on women, girls and other vulnerable cohorts such as migrant and new Tasmanian communities, young people, Tasmanians living with disabilities, and older Tasmanians, just to mention a few.
Our cultural challenges regarding gender and treatment of women and girls at the state and national levels are dominating current political and public discourse, and not before time, quite frankly. Hence it will not surprise anyone if I now focus on the pandemic’s impact upon Tasmania’s women and girls, and the plan put forward by both PESRAC and the Premier’s Address to help strengthen that exposed fault line.
This inequitable gender fault line was clearly identified even prior to the PESRAC interim report nationally and internationally. Report after report highlighted that the pandemic had impacted women’s access to employment to education to services and to childcare. Statistic after statistic highlighted the increasing demand for family violence and sexual assault services, showing an escalation of violence against women. Warnings were issued over the federal government’s move to allow early access to superannuation funds and the impact that would have on women who collectively have less superannuation to dip into than their male counterparts, now and into the future.
Deloitte released modelling last year indicating that women and young people have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. In Tasmania women make up 60 per cent of the tourism and hospitality workforce, according to the Tourism and Industry Council’s submission to PESRAC, as well as being highly represented across the arts, events and retail sectors. Evidence also continues to mount that women disproportionately suffer in the labour market, with diminishing opportunities to obtain secure, decent jobs because women are more likely to be in casual roles, filling 54 per cent of all casual positions nationally.
Nationally women accounted for 62 per cent of all new casual jobs created in the period from May to November 2020. Recent industrial relations changes federally will only continue to make women more vulnerable to casualisation, yet the main suggestion to assist in filling this gender fault line from the PESRAC interim report, with its predominant focus on building our way out of the pandemic, was to suggest support programs to assist women to transition to the construction industry.
Many Tasmanians at the time raised their eyebrows at this rather limited and borderline dismissive addressing of the pandemic’s impacts on women, but were told to wait for the final report with its more detailed and long-term two- to five-year plan. Wait we did, anxiously perhaps for some, as nationally recent job quality data tells a bleak story for women’s employment prospects. The fault line of women’s work environment sees them returning to paid work on inferior terms compared to men – fewer hours, less pay and less security.
Nationally, casual jobs accounted for 64 per cent of the total growth in women’s employment from May to November last year. However, more than half of all the growth in women’s employment in the six-month period was in both low hours and insecure work with 52 per cent of the total growth of employees in part-time casual jobs. Further, traditional full‑time permanent jobs with what were once considered normal entitlements, such as paid sick leave, holidays and superannuation, represented only 10 per cent of the Australian female employment growth from May through to November.
If you wish to know what the prospects are for Tasmanian women and girls, what the rate of traditional full-time permanent jobs with paid sick leave, holidays and superannuation available for Tasmanian women and girls, do not expect the PESRAC final report nor the Premier’s Address to inform you of this. In fact, the PESRAC chair stated on the ABC Radio’s Mornings program on 18 March, following the release of the final report, that challenges facing women and the other vulnerable cohorts I mentioned, including young people,’are dealt with closely in the interim report.’. Gobsmacking.
Unfortunately, it is not surprising, given this dismissive attitude that women have to fit in with the male norm, that they are dealt with in the interim report by those superficial gestures. That they have to fit in with the male norm with male expectations, and be permitted into male spaces, such as the construction sector, traditionally on male terms is consistent with the prevalent cultural attitudes that are only now becoming recognised as being so extremely entrenched.
The absence of any dedicated plan to make more resilient this particular fault line, impacting on over half the Tasmanian population, is not surprising, sadly, but we deserve better. I acknowledge the Premier’s commitment to Tasmanian women and girls made in the opening of his address and I quote –
We know there is more to be done and we will not shirk our responsibilities to ensure that everyone is safe, everyone is respected, and everyone is supported.
I wish to acknowledge that I believe the Premier is genuine about trying to do the right thing to address gender inequities. But due to the lack of a fully developed and integrated plan by which to do so, the Premier is left with a piecemeal and ad hoc crisis-driven mode by which to act.
For example, his address includes the very welcome and positive measure to provide free sanitary products in our schools to help address period poverty experienced by many Tasmanian girls and young women. This is not because of PESRAC, despite New South Wales introducing similar initiatives before the PESRAC final report was released, but due to the initiative of a young Tasmanian girl, whom I thank for that. It is wonderful leadership to come from our community, but it is not part of a greater plan and or a planned policy response from the avenues to which we were looking for that plan.
I also wish to place on the record my appreciation for the Premier’s swift and genuine acknowledgment and implementation of my proposal to actively have an independent review conducted of the Tasmanian parliamentary, ministerial and political office workplaces in light of the recent national events. I am pleased to see that that suggestion was picked up immediately and that we are progressing it.
However, this Government places much emphasis on getting women into boards and into leadership roles which is laudable, absolutely, but I have to say to some extent it misses the point. Women first want and need safety. Women first want and need respect. Therefore, in the absence of a meaningful or targeted resilience building plan to address in-built entrenched structural gender -based disadvantage and inequality, either from PESRAC or from the Government, the Government will seriously need to consider my call I think to guide them. That is the call for a gender impact assessment statement to be incorporated within state budgets from now on, as well as to be incorporated into the Cabinet assessment process for any bills or policy being forwarded for consideration, just as economic impacts are incorporated and considered.
A gender impact assessment and statement in both these spheres would be a demonstration that the Premier is serious about delivering for Tasmanian women and girls. Clearly, the state cannot on its own counter damaging changes to superannuation or the erosion of industrial protections occurring within the federal jurisdiction, but it does have a responsibility in developing appropriate migratory measures as well as to ensure its own initiatives, such as the predominant reliance on shovel-ready, build our way back into the black strategies. They do not continue to marginalise, to disempower and to endanger Tasmanian women and girls. This is clearly where we do not want to return to the status quo of pre-COVID. We also have to be brutally clear that during COVID the fault line of gender was exacerbated.
I need to move on despite there being much more I could say on that subject. Some may say that it was not the role of PESRAC, nor the Premier’s Address to provide a detailed plan such that I am calling for when it comes to redressing gender equity. However, there were some surprisingly detailed structural plans in both the PESRAC Report and the Premier’s Address. I would like to focus on a couple of those now to demonstrate that disparity in prioritisation. The disparity in detail.
TasTAFE is clearly an important and significant component of our education, skill development and training sector. I do not think anyone here would dispute that we need it functioning to deliver world class education and training services. I also note that the Premier’s Address asserts:
One of the strongest themes PESRAC heard in its consultation with business is the need for our training provider TasTAFE to meet the needs of a generation of young people and an influx of jobseekers who need to quickly upskill and reskill to move across sectors as we recover from the structural impacts of COVID-19.
Absolutely, we need to support the upskilling, reskilling and initial training of Tasmanians across all sectors and demographics. I do not anyone needs to prosecute the case for that. What I am concerned about, though, is the lack of a convincing case being prosecuted here that firstly TasTAFE is currently not or is unable to deliver on those expectations. Secondly, further, that corporatizing this entity into a government business enterprise is the appropriate solution with whatever the perceived problem is regarding TasTAFE and its current capacity to deliver for Tasmanians seeking skill development and employers seeking skilled Tasmanians.
Put simply, I am not convinced of the nature or extent of the perceived TasTAFE problem. Nor am I convinced the GBE proposal is the best solution. Unfortunately, this proposal does have the hallmark of a pre-COVID ideological agenda being implemented by stealth under the cover of COVID.
Why do I say that? Well, I look at how the GBE proposal is framed. Despite the Government boasting that Tasmania’s economy is far outperforming other jurisdictions and I quote from the Premier’s Address:
We have the lowest unemployment rate of all the states and job numbers are at pre-pandemic levels.
Further, he says:
CommSec has Tasmania placed as the best performing economy in the nation for the fourth quarter in a row.
Additional examples of business confidence and government support are also provided in the address, despite all of that positivity, however, suddenly under the heading of skills and training we discover there is a massive deficiency problem with TasTAFE. Such a problem, apparently, that it is one of the ‘strongest themes PESRAC heard in its consultation with business.’ This makes me wonder what PESRAC heard from the TasTAFE students or sTafe, however. Or how the generation of young people feel whom apparently the business sector is anxious that Tass Tafe is not meeting the needs of. They may share or they may have a different year to that held by the business sector but neither the PESRAC Report now the Premiers address provides any insight into the perspectives help the these other involved stake holder groups. If this survey conducted through the PESRAC process about Tas Tafe was done in a different way I think perhaps it might be decried as push polling. I do note that although Tas Tafe appears on the consultation list provided on the PESRAC website and was involved in the cross sector workshops it does not appear that Tas Tafe made a written submission during either phase one or two.
However, I did have a quick look at some of the stake holders who did make submissions such as the TCCI and Tasmania small business council who both made submission to phase one neither of which mentioned Tas Tafe. The TCCI did discuss the need for industry lead services as opposed to training provider led and also called for a skills and work force development fund amongst other things.
Interestingly the tourism industry council Tasmania whilst also emphasising the importance of hospitality and tourism training identified the current success of a need for on going further support of both the industry led tourism and hospitality training organisation and the collaboration between the University of Tasmania and the tourism and hospitality industry. It makes no mention of Tas Tafe good or bad.
I do not intend to go through each and every submission by PESRAC in this address however, just for the sake of completion it is also worth reviewing the nine cross sector workshops and the three region round table also conducted by PESRAC of which the summarised output and outcomes are available on the PESRAC website. Doing that review you will find the region workshop summary of outcomes report makes two mentions of Tas Tafe one was a call for more certainty and regularity for Tas Tafe delivering training courses in the regions. The other was to suggest moving the region trade training centres from the department of education to skills Tasmania or Tas Tafe.
Of the nine cross sector workshops outcome reports there were are handful of mentions of Tas Tafe across workshops two, three, five and seven. The comments range from Tas Tafe being underutilised work shop two, that it as well as UTAS needed more flexibility such as including provision for weekend courses workshop five. To its role within the board of context of vet service supply workshop seven and the need for modernisation and different delivery models workshop three.
To sum up on this point it is not surprising given the economic aspect of the pandemic crisis for there to be focus across a range of PESRAC participants on an immediate and long term skill development retention. However, if there was extensive and persuasive evidence of broad scale community and stake holder dissatisfaction with TAS TAFE it would be a fair assumption that it would appear move extensively than we see in the PESRAC submissions and output reports rather than the scant few oblique mentions that Tas Tafe … across nine cross sector workshops and three region round tables.
We heard that apparently discontent with Tas Tafe was raised by virtually all who participate in the PESRAC. However, the materials provided by PESRAC do not appear to support that contention. It is difficult to reconcile Tas Tafe are under performing when students won the following in the 2020 Australia training awards apprentice of the year, vocational student of the year. Tas Tafe was also one of three registered training organisations that were nationally short listed as a finalist in a large training provider of the year category.
Despite the effort made by the Premiers address to present the proposal to transform Tafe into a .. as a solution it remains unclear to me at least the exact nature of the problem. Undoubtably there is always room for improvement however, unless we are clear on the exact nature of any problem or identified areas for change how are we meant to evaluate whether the proposed solution is a good fit. Potentially an appropriate way to test exactly where Tas Tafe is fit for purpose given current challenges and opportunities and to also test whether the proposed solution addresses any identified problem is to establish a joint house select committee to examine the issue. This Parliament will required to debate and sign off on any move to transition Tas Tafee into a GBE. A joint house committee would provide an appropriate and transparent mechanism by which to inform ourselves that the solution fits the problem as well as whose voices are being included in a discussion.
I mentioned earlier my concern of the potential for ideological agendas to be prosecuted under the cover of COVID-19 another area where I hold grave concerns that we are seeing it occur is in the PESRAC report for local council amalgamations. This is a matter in which we all need to engage as per the Premier’s address that –
Unless there is agreement in this place as well as the Legislative Council that reform is needed and that a process should be established, there is no point considering it further.
At this stage I hold serious reservations regarding this PESRAC recommendation. Again, despite being told that it was an issue raised by virtually all spoken to by PESRAC, their publicly available documents do not reflect that purported concern. The Regional Workshop Summary of Outcomes Report makes 10 references to local government. One includes local government reform without detailing what that reform could look like or address while the other mentions are within the context of the role of local government to be the conduit between their respective communities and the state government.
Another output report included one call to reduce council numbers – that was workshop 4 – and another workshop, 8, recognises that there is more opportunities to get smarter at sharing resources across councils, businesses and industry to help improve services or reduce costs. This report also warned that local government cuts in particular will have a direct impact on communities. Once again, it is unclear how or why our local government tier has been identified as problematic in this manner or why it warrants the proposed and contentious so-called solution of amalgamations.
We know amalgamations has been a long-held objective in certain sectors while also being strongly resisted by others, including communities invested in their local municipalities. At this stage, given my strong reservations regarding exactly how problematic the number of local councils is or how amalgamations will assist in strengthening a robust and resilient Tasmania moving forward assisting in addressing the serious fault line exacerbated by the pandemic, at this stage I would be indicating to the Premier that as a member of this place this proposal does not yet have my agreement.
Mr President, it is also worth noting that the issue of local council amalgamations also predates the arrival of the coronavirus and ensuing pandemic. By the PESRACs chair own priority criteria as expressed on that local ABC morning program on 18 March, it should not be considered a COVID recovery issue, just as, apparently, the challenges and opportunities posed by the state’s ageing population should not be considered a COVID recovery issue on the grounds that it existed pre-pandemic, according to the PESRAC chair.
I would like to talk about Tasmania’s ageing demographic. I have to place on the record how bewildered and concerned I am over the lack of focus upon Tasmania’s ageing demographic, a particular factor which distinguishes this state from our federal counterparts. I welcome the Premier’s address’ acknowledgement that the aged care and disability support sectors are amongst the fastest growing industry in the state with COVID-19 disproportionately affecting the skills pipeline for these sectors and additional funding of $3 million to assist funding an additional 600 places.
However, as pointed out by eminent workforce demographer, Dr Lisa Denny, much more needs to be done to address the challenges of an ageing population. As Dr Denny states in her submission to PESRAC –
Future economic and social policy development for Tasmania will need to be positioned in the context of a population with low or no population growth and ageing rapidly.
I do not have time in this context to go into Dr Denny’s submission in detail except to point out that not only does she discuss the need for Tasmania to consider investing in the white economy to address structural challenges which is described as encompassing ‘a new collective for economic growth based on the increasing demand for age-focused needs, an eco-system of products and services for older people’ but also affinities between the opportunities to incentivise research and development as Tasmania recovers from the uprecedented global scenario of COVID-19 and provides for the ongoing unprecedented global scenario of population ageing.
Significantly, Dr Denny raises substantial and interesting points of consideration regarding the government’s current emphasis on shovel-ready projects and addressing the need for both urban and regional regeneration and revitalisation for public spaces and towns. She discusses the unfortunate correlation between ageing regional populations and the deterioration of the built environments surrounding them. She draws attention to the potential for such revitalisation programs at an appropriate scale, boosting both liveable in the region as well as improved service provision which in turn improves social cohesion.
Not surprisingly, neither PESRACs final report nor the Premier’s address integrates addressing our ageing population into our COVID-19 recovery plan. Apparently, again according to PESRAC’s chair as per his ABC radio interview earlier this month our ageing population is not a COVID-19 recovery issue as it pre-existed the pandemic.
Yes, it did and it will continue to exist during and post the pandemic. This sector of our community are recognized as being one of the most vulnerable cohorts to pandemics of this nature and will become increasingly so if targeted services are not there to support them.
I do not understand how or why we distinguish between sectors of our community which are or are not part of the COVID-19 recovery. We are told that we are all in this together but apparently not if you are part of the aged population or a service and care provider to this portion of the Tasmanian community just as you are not perhaps if you are a woman or a young person or some of those other cohort groups who also were told they pre-dated this experience and therefore are not part of the recovery.
This distinction also feel further arbitrary when we pause and realise it could apply to any aspect identified for prioritisation within the COVID-19 recovery plan. Challenges for the construction sector. Skill development needs. Challenges meeting perceived skill demand and supply in the tourism and hospitality sectors. All these things existed pre-pandemic for example and yet they are considered and prioritized within the COVID-19 recovery plan put forward.
I stated earlier local government amalgamations have been dangled or threatened depending on your perspective ever since Ray Groom’s contentious MP’s pay rise of the early 1990’s. Definitely pre-pandemic but apparently it still qualifies to feature as part of our COVID-19 recovery under the PESRAC report and the Premier’s address.
I now wish to move on to how we evaluate the delivery of PESRAC’s proposals adopted by the Government and expressed in the Premier’s address.
I raised concerns over the lack of tangible benchmarks and delivery measurement mechanisms during last year’s Budget Estimates scrutiny committees in relation to the interim PESRAC report particularly in light of the manner in which they were presented in the 2020‑2021 State Budget with no indication of timelines milestones of status.
These concerns still stand in light of both the final report and the Premier’s address. In comparison I looked at the 1999 Jim Bacon initiative Tasmania Together. That process had a whole level of bureaucracy including legislation for the progress board etcetera which there is probably very good reason not to duplicate with the PESRAC process.
However, there was an acknowledgement that to develop and maintain community confidence in a process there needed to be clear transparent accountability and evaluation mechanisms so people could see for themselves what how and where the Tasmania Together process and its initiatives and proposals were being delivered and in fact that they were being delivered in a manner people expected therefore the Tasmania Together process saw initiatives and policy priorities released with associated indicated benchmarks.
Also, as part of that process laid out regular inbuilt review such as a five yearly review and there was also benchmarks status summary reports delivered to assist people to see how things were playing out.
What I am suggesting is that in stark contrast we currently have no credible or meaningful pandemic recovery benchmarks nor any objective mechanism by which to identify or evaluate the delivery of the recommendations from either the interim or the final PESRAC reports that are apparently underpinning our way forward from here.
I wonder whether the Premier could give some thought to how best to deliver community confidence through better accountability better benchmarking or at least record keeping in a public fashion around progress and achievement of the things that are detailed in both the interim and the final PESRAC reports.
There are some other things that are missing from the Premier’s address when we think of it being about the State of our State and where to from here.
There were other significant silences contained in the address relating to fundamentally critical public policy.
Firstly, I speak about political donation reform. The silence regarding the long promised and overdue state based political donation reform was deafening in the address. The proposed legislative timeframe for this essential democratic reform should have been outlined at the earliest possibility at the commencement of Parliament this year which was in fact the Premier’s annual address but it was not there.
No more will the excuse wash that the pandemic takes priority over such fundamental reforms to strengthen the health of our democracy particularly not when we see the legislation the Government has chosen to prioritise in their stead, such as the workplace anti-protestor and the major projects bills we dealt with last year during the pandemic.
Concerns are growing over the Government’s perceived tardiness in delivering on this promise, give we know they have the report and they have had it for many months now, and particularly given the recent shift in government status to that of minority, and the growing whispers of an early election. The situation the Government finds itself in, without a majority, is one largely of its own making. It will be unconscionable for the Tasmanian community to be penalised for the Government’s predicament.
The community was promised electoral donation reform multiple times over the term of this Government from, I think, two months after the last election, and that promise must be delivered before the next general election is held. I think I speak for many when I say that the community has put this Government on notice. It will be a blatant untenable and unforgivable breach of public trust should Tasmanians go to the polls again without knowing who has given money to whom. There is no excuse for the Tasmanian voter ever to be placed in that position again.
Another notable absence in the Premier’s Address and the description of ‘where to from here’ was any update on the Government’s Future Gaming Markets Reform Plan. Again a plan that has apparently been delayed due to the pandemic, despite the process commencing well before the pandemic hit. Clearly it would potentially benefit some stakeholders, such as Federal Hotels, should the status quo continue. A lazy political party could even recycle the promised reforms as the forthcoming election promise, hoping it may again nullify any alternative political party election commitments.
Should the Government intend to pursue it future gaming markets reforms this term, I take this opportunity to remind the Government that the Premier provided me with an undertaking during budget Estimates hearings last November that not only will there be a publicly released exposure draft bill, they will also endeavour that the community will have a minimum of five weeks public consultation time in which to make submissions on that exposure draft bill. Then, presuming those submissions are treated with due consideration and any modifications are made to the bill before it is formally tabled in parliament, the time frame for this gaming markets reform is not one which can be rushed through at a last minute before going to a rushed election.
Should we be in a position where an early election is called and will be held prior to political donation reform and prior to future gaming markets reform, I call on the Government here and now, and all other political parties, to make public commitments not to accept any pre-election donations from any poker machine industry entities or any entities directly associated and financial beneficiaries of the poker machine industry. I call on the Government right now to make that commitment to the Tasmanian people. We deserve to go to the next election with a clear understanding that it is not being funded, bought or influenced by that same industry.
The other detail missing from the Premier’s Address was any update on how long we can expect the state of emergency declaration to remain in force. The state of emergency was extended on 13 February this year for a further 12 weeks. By my count that would make its expiry date 8 May. Does the Premier expect to be able to lift the declaration and restore and restore our civil liberties thus far suspended due to the goodwill and cooperation of the community? What are the criteria by which this decision will be evaluated in light of the decreasing numbers of COVID-19 active cases around the nation? I understand that does not necessarily correlate to a decreasing threat, but it would be timely to receive an update from the Premier as to how that decision will be approached and upon what Public Health-driven criteria it will be based.
I would like to finish on a positive note by acknowledging that there are many positive announcements in the Premier’s Address, and important commitments for investment. These have been well canvassed by others in the other place and this place, and I will highlight just a few that I was particularly pleased to see.
The Premier’s commitment to develop a sustainability strategy for Tasmania is welcome. I also acknowledge the PESRAC final report’s recommendations that we adopt the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. These were developed by the UN to provide a blueprint for developing a better and more sustainable future for all. They seek to provide a measurable and deliverable mechanism to address challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice and can be addressed locally as well as globally.
I also acknowledge the further resourcing of adequate, affordable social housing, which is very welcome. Although it is positive, this commitment remains far short of what will be required to substantially address that housing and homelessness challenge we face in this state. We are still in a holding pattern on this issue. All the investments, while good, are desperately trying to hold us in place so that we do not lose further ground, rather than taking us forward towards a solution.
Much bigger and bolder action will be required in the area of housing and homelessness to see our state truly thrive. I commend to the Government the target proposed by Shelter Tasmania of increasing social housing in the state to 10 per cent of all dwellings in 10 years. To achieve this target would require an additional 10 000 homes delivered at the rate of 1000 per year.
It was positive to see the commitment in the Premier’s Address to investment of a further $41.2 million over four years to fully fund phases 1 and 2 of the Government’s response to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Review. I dearly hope to see the outcomes of this investment deliver on the intent to better support children and adolescents, particularly those most vulnerable in our community.
Investments such as these, if fully delivered and successful in achieving their intent, have a capacity to make a tangible difference to the life outcomes for Tasmanian children and to break intergenerational cycles of disadvantage. I note that this review and investment was already in train prior to COVID-19 and although mentioned in the PESRAC report, it was not a new or different direction emerging from PESRAC consultation processes. However, it is well overdue and a straightforward improvement that was required to better address the pre‑COVID-19 challenges we faced in that area.
Last, but of prime significance, I welcome the Premier’s commitment to receive and consider proposals for further Tasmanian Aboriginal land returns. I look forward to further details of that process, which I hope are forthcoming sooner rather than later.
To conclude, Mr President, bold is used frequently to frame the undertakings detailed in the Premier’s Address. However, despite the cluster of positive new initiatives contained within the Premier’s Address, there was the potential for it to be much bolder and braver than it actually is. This address strikes a familiar tone in the lead-up to an election year. That should give us pause to stop and think after the year we have survived and the prediction of ongoing and future destabilisation and vulnerabilities in the wake of the pandemic, how could the plan forward appear familiar?
I understand the need to be reassuring for a traumatised community, but the reassurance we most desperately need to receive is that all the lessons from this unprecedented experience have been identified. All the necessary lessons have been learned. We have collated, stored and activated our unique experiences – to inform how to look after the vulnerable better, how to close gaping fault lines, how to invest in whole-of-community resilience building now and into the future. Further, that we have collated, stored and used our unique experiences to inform our emergency infrastructure for future crises, whether it is the next wave of this particular COVID-19 virus or a different, unrelated cataclysm that sees us perhaps plunge again into partial or entire lockdown.
If that happens, or perhaps when that happens, we will not be able to hide behind ‘unprecedented’ again. The community will rightfully have expectations that while we may be plunged into say, a lockdown, we should not necessarily be plunged into the same degree of chaos or disconnect of unprotected vulnerable cohorts, for example. We should not have to learn those lessons again.
Despite there being some positive components contained in both the PESRAC reports and the Premier’s Address, I have to say that currently I am not confident we have either a rigorous post-COVID-19 plan for resilience and recovery, or that we have a comprehensive and accessible resource to inform any future shock of a similar scale as this past year.
I am concerned that the tough and truly bold challenges and opportunities presented by this pandemic to reset and reimagine a resilient Tasmania have become muffled by an opaque process, during which ideological agendas could be, and have been, promulgated – an opaque process that muffles once more the voices traditionally marginalised, whilst also obscuring sight of whom and whereby proposals which have been picked up and adopted – even those I support – have originated. Just as Tasmanians should know who has donated what to whom when they go to the ballot box, so too should they be able to see who and what may have influenced this critical decision-making process on which we are relying upon as we move forward into an unsettling post-pandemic future.
I will finish my contribution with my heartfelt thanks to the Tasmanian community for the shared efforts and successes of this past year under the shadow of COVID‑19.
I look forward to our continued community efforts in our recovery and rebuilding efforts and I hope to see truly innovative and bold developments, if not led and driven by this Government, then emerging and growing from the resilient and committed Tasmanian citizens and communities.
I note the address.
