Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As members in this place may be aware, the Tasmania task force co-chaired by me and our state Labor leader, Bryan Green, has spent the last few months moving around Tasmania holding public forums, taking online submissions, talking with industry and having roundtables around the state on specific issues, looking at the future long-term sustainability of the Tasmanian economy. Tasmania still has two very different paths that it might go down. We heard from the member for Lyons about the Taste of Tasmania event tonight and about some of the wonderful produce that Tasmania is producing at the moment.

We are still, sadly, performing badly on many economic indicators. We still have one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the country. I think that four out of our five regions are in the top 10 of highest youth unemployment rates in the country. We have some really serious issues with year 12 retention and some serious issues in terms of skills, so there is still much work to be done. At our roundtables and talking to industry many things have come to the fore, but it has been particularly interesting to hear about the focus on education from our industry leaders.

Last week was a busy week in Tasmania as we started to finalise some of the consultations. We had several shadow ministers in Tasmania, particularly in southern Tasmania. The shadow minister for employment, Brendan O'Connor, was in Tasmania talking to workers and unions about penalty rates and the importance of penalty rates to their salaries and to the Tasmanian economy. We also had the assistant shadow minister for health, Stephen Jones, having consultation on medicinal cannabis and what opportunities that might present for Tasmania. We had the shadow minister for communications, Jason Clare, in town talking ICT and he held a roundtable with industry about innovation in industry. Of course, the NBN did get a mention, as did those areas of Tasmania that are not going to get the NBN. Importantly, it was interesting to hear about the wonderful innovations in Tasmania in ICT and to hear about some of the interesting apps and technology in Tasmania, including some in my electorate.

On Friday it was wonderful to have the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, in town together with the then shadow minister for mental health, Jan McLucas, to launch Labor's initial response to the National Mental Health Commission's report into mental health, where Labor talked about our ambition to halve the suicide rate. We then had a discussion with local businesses and the Leader of the Opposition. The opposition leader also took the opportunity to recommit $100 million additional funding to the Midland Highway in Tasmania. That $100 million replaces the $100 million that was taken out by the Abbott government when it came to office. It is important funding for the Midland Highway, which is the main connection between northern and southern Tasmania.