Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm always very pleased to return to my electorate in northern Tasmania, especially after the always eventful sitting weeks in Canberra. Upon my return to Tasmania the week before last, I went doorknocking in West Launceston. I don't need an opinion poll to tell me about the issues that are important in northern Tasmania; I hear them on the door steps every day. I heard them loud and clear in the months leading up to the election on 2 July 2016. These issues are jobs, well-paid jobs that people can rely upon, jobs that enable people to play a real part in our communities; education, so that our children can play their part in building Tasmania and Australia; communities which are strong and resilient, so that the workforce is able to cope with a demanding future; and, finally, but not least, health. Our communities know how important our public healthcare system is.

Labor established Medicare. We understand the importance of being able to access GPs through our world-class universal healthcare system. We also understand that our healthcare system is an integrated system, with access to GPs as primary healthcare providers and our world-class public hospital system providing acute care, with a host of specialists and allied health providers supporting the system both in the primary- and acute-care models. We took a lot of flak after the 2016 election campaign, particularly from a petulant Prime Minister on election night, for daring to suggest that Medicare was under attack from the Liberals, but even the Liberals know that Medicare plays an important part in the life of every Australian. That is why the Liberals have taken the extraordinary step of passing legislation to, supposedly, guarantee Medicare. This is despite the Liberals continuing their freeze on the Medicare rebate whilst claiming that it is unfrozen. Try seeing a GP or specialist in northern Tasmania to test the proposition that the Liberals have unfrozen the Medicare rebate freeze. Labor knows—everyone knows—that the unfreezing of the Medicare rebate is a con, timed to coincide with the next federal election. It was the federal Liberals that cut funding to our healthcare system by failing to provide for increased demand and acuity, but it was the Tasmanian state Liberals led by Will Hodgman who stood idly by and failed to do anything about it. The state and federal Liberals are more interested in their own petty internal squabbles than standing up for the state of Tasmania.

The Prime Minister has postponed any action with respect to the distribution of the GST, which is vital to services in Tasmania like our health budget, until after the Tasmanian and South Australian elections. The fact that the Tasmanian Liberal Premier and the Treasurer are not complaining publicly about this tells us the truth of the matter: the Tasmanian Liberals are too weak and ineffective to argue the state's case for retaining our share of GST.

But the Liberal Party's disdain for Tasmania goes much further. Just the last sitting week, the member for New England, in his previous role as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, was asked in a series of questions about infrastructure, in particular, the woeful underspend within that portfolio and the lack of new infrastructure projects within my home state of Tasmania. The former Deputy Prime Minister must have had other matters on his mind because his answer referred to the coalition's commitment to, of all things, inland rail—you just couldn't make it up! Any infrastructure projects in fact referred to by the member for New England were projects commenced under the state and federal Labor governments.

Federal Labor is a friend to Tasmania. Labor understands the importance of transforming our Tasmanian economy through investment in education, in particular TAFE and higher education, where Tasmania has historically underperformed. The federal Liberals cut over $80 million from schools in Tasmania whilst appropriating to themselves a commitment to education. What did we hear from Will Hodgman's government? Nothing. Silence. Nothing at all.

Tasmanians deserve a government that will stand up for them and fight for them in Canberra. This weekend Tasmanian voters will go to the polls faced with a choice: another four years of a weak and ineffectual Liberal government or a Rebecca White majority Labor government fighting for the interests of Tasmania. The difference could not be more obvious. The Hodgman Liberal government created the health crisis that we are currently facing in Tasmania, cutting $210 million from health in their budget and standing idly by when the Prime Minister cut millions more. Waiting times have blown out. Ambulances are ramped at all hours of the day and night, and our health professionals are struggling in an under-resourced system.

Under a Rebecca White majority state Labor government, health will be the No. 1 priority. Labor's Better Health Plan will keep Tasmanians healthier for longer, treated faster and returned home to their families sooner. This investment will support the opening of more hospital beds and employ up to 500 health professionals, including offering: 100 more graduate nurse positions, 20 hospital doctors, 25 paramedics and fund 32 GP internships. Labor will build the capacity of the health workforce steadily over the next six years. This will allow for more beds, more medical treatment, more elective surgery, shorter emergency wait times, and better ambulance response times.

The Hodgman Liberal government has an equally dismal record on jobs for Tasmania as it does on health. We know that full-time jobs have fallen since the election of this government and that in some regions youth unemployment is as high as 20 per cent, leaving a generation of young Tasmanian people without opportunity. Rather than standing up for hardworking low-paid workers, the state Liberals instead welcomed the decision to cut penalty rates, proving, once again, they lack the credentials to fight for vulnerable Tasmanians when it counts. Their record too on education is just as concerning—cutting pathway planners from schools, mismanaging TAFE, and making a disastrous attempt to lower the school starting age for Tasmanian children.

A Tasmania Labor government will strive towards making Tasmania the education state, delivering $63 million in extra funding to provide Tasmanian schools with more than 300 new teachers and education support staff. Labor has listened to families and listened to students and educators, and is committed to delivering a quality education plan to repair the damage done by the Hodgman Liberal government. Only a majority Labor government will remove compulsory school fees from public schools. Nationally, federal Labor will put back what the Liberals have cut. We have a plan to ensure that proper needs-based funding is reinstated, working in conjunction with the states.

Time and time again, meeting people while door-knocking, in the street, or in my electorate office, I hear how hard it is for ordinary, everyday Australians to get ahead, despite the fact that they may be in work. Those ordinary Tasmanians feel that they are not participating in the 'better times' that Will Hodgman and co tell us that the state of Tasmania is experiencing. Perhaps it is the fact that no Liberals have protested the cuts to penalty rates and no Liberals have argued for decent wage growth. Instead, we hear about a plan for economic growth based upon handing out $65 billion worth of tax cuts to the top end of town.

It is the Labor Party that carries the torch in Canberra for fairer outcomes for ordinary Australians, the people who are ignored and left behind by the Liberals. And it will be the Labor Party that delivers a better future for Tasmanians. We understand that the way to improve the life of most Australians is not to give a $65 billion tax cut to the big corporates. We understand, on this side of the House, that education transforms lives. We understand that we must ensure that our world-class universal healthcare system is supported and enhanced. We put the interests of people first. Rebecca White, on Saturday, will lead a majority Labor government for Tasmanians, not just for special interests. It's vitally important that Tasmanians hear the call and that they vote for a better future for Tasmanians, not something simply perpetuating the special interests which have been supporting the Hodgman Liberal government.

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