Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the good state of Tasmania and about the good things that are happening there. As we know, there are some difficult circumstances and difficult times facing Tasmania which have been long running. There have been situations and matters at hand that are not as a result of this current economic period but of many decades.

What is confusing, though, is that members from Tasmania come into this House and talk down their own state. I find that quite confusing. This motion is more about all the things that are wrong with Tasmania than the things that are right with Tasmania or the work that can be done to improve the lot of the great state of Tasmania. I look through this motion, moved by the member for Bass, at the bits referring to some negative things and also where Tasmania does not quite lift to the standard that we might all expect and then see that it quickly shifts to just looking for someone to blame, or quickly shifts to just saying, 'It's just somebody's fault.' I think it is actually a little bit more involved and a little bit more complex than that.

Reading this motion highlighted to me that this is the state of a confused government—a government that is still confused about its role in what it might be able to do for the state of Tasmania and in fact for this country; about whether it is still in opposition or whether it is in control of the reins and levers of the economy; and about what it should do. Instead of talking down an economy, it should be talking up an economy. Instead of highlighting the problems, which anybody can do—it is very easy to do; anybody can highlight problems—it should provide concrete solutions. Plans are many. When you have only been in government for five minutes, you have all the plans in the world. Let us just see how those plans work out. I wish them well on this, because I think the good people of Tasmania deserve to do well and to do better.

We heard other members talk in here about some of the long-run issues that have not been resolved. They were not resolved in the Howard government years and they were not necessarily resolved under us either. But I will say this: we stood up for the Tasmanian economy and the Tasmanian state, and we will continue to do that. The confused circumstances that the government find themselves in are reminiscent of the confused circumstances they found themselves in with what they said before an election and where they are after an election, particularly in our relationship with Indonesia. They are not sure which they are anymore, but there is always a price to be paid for the things that are said and done before an election and the things that must be done after an election.

So it is very easy for government members to come in here and write these long private members' business motions talking about how bad things are in Tasmania, but they take no responsibility. They will not take any responsibility if things do not necessarily improve all that much, and they talk about the jobs that have been lost in the past. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that things might have been worse if it were not for some of the good things that the Labor federal government did while it was in government.

I can tell you this: if you come into this place on a promise of building a million jobs, you have to start somewhere, and you do not start by sacking people, such as people directly in the IT sector down in Tasmania. You do not create jobs in Tasmania by sacking people in an industry where there is a potential for growth, you do not shift public servants from Tasmania back to the mainland if you want to create something positive for the Tasmanian economy, and you certainly do not walk away from the workers of Holden in South Australia if you are serious about building a million jobs. I recall something really specific that the opposition used to say to me all the time when we were in government.

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