Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Good morning to my parliamentary colleagues from Tasmania. I will address just one point very briefly before I turn my focus to the motion that we are discussing today: the issue of a price on carbon. I would ask the government to be mindful that the repeal of a price on carbon will mean that we will lose the $70 million windfall that Hydro Tasmania will enjoy this financial year and in successive years. So I do not want to get into a slanging match or argy-bargy about the price of carbon. What I would ask the government, though, is to be mindful of the cost to Tasmania of overturning the price on carbon. I think it would be an entirely appropriate in the circumstances if the government would consider somehow compensating Tasmania for the loss of that $70 million benefit that is being enjoyed by Hydro in this financial year.

Tasmania is obviously a place of enormous unrealised potential. It is a wonderful place. I chose to move there in fairly recent years, and I am very pleased with that decision. It is the jewel in this nation's crown in so many ways. But Tasmania will not release its potential until at least three things are done. First, there needs to be a collegiate, multilateral political approach to remedying the problems and the challenges that Tasmania has. I am pleased that the debate today has started in a very gentlemanly and collegiate way, and I would hope that that continues. When this debate started last week, I was disappointed to see that there was too much mud-slinging and political pointscoring. I think that is one of the reasons we in Tasmania find ourselves in the circumstances that we do. I am certainly more than prepared to work in a collegiate manner, in a non-partisan way, with the members of all of the political parties to try and find consensus, and to try and find ways to move the state forward. The future of my home state of Tasmania should be above party politics and political self-interest. We have a state election coming up in a few months' time, and there are political reasons for trying to score points at this point in time. But I would ask that we put them aside in the interests of the state.

Second, Tasmania will not achieve its potential until governments, both state and federal, put in place the enablers of economic development. It is no good—and politicians are guilty of this all the time—jumping to stage 2 of the plan; for example, that we will be a food bowl, or that we will increase the size of the university, or that we will increase niche manufacturing, like high-technology catamarans at Incat—but that is actually the second stage of a plan. The first stage is to put in place the enablers of economic development. There are a couple that come straight to my mind. For a start, we need a better quality of governance in Tasmania—

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