Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise during senators' statements today to talk about something from my home state of Tasmania, a very important date that's coming up: 3 March. It's not The Taste of Tasmania festival or Dark Mofo; it's our state election. It's a date on which Tasmanians will have a choice about the future that they want for their state. It's a date on which Tasmanians have a chance to make a choice that secures the state's future. It's a date on which Tasmanians will have the choice of ensuring that the gains that have been made over the last four years of majority Liberal government in Tasmania are locked in. It's a date on which Tasmanians will have a chance, as Senator Singh said on Monday night, to choose between two parties with very distinct policy folios that they are taking to the election. It's a chance for Tasmanians to ensure that they make a choice that the state they live in will go to the next level.

Tasmania is very much at a crossroads at this election. On 3 March, Tasmanians can make one of three choices. They can veer off to the left and vote with Labor and the Greens in Tasmania, two parties that governed our state between the years 2010 and 2014, a disastrous period in our state's history; they can veer off to the right and support the Jacqui Lambie Network and the group of characters that former Senator Lambie has running in our state, some of whom are, disappointingly, before our law courts; or they can go straight ahead and support the party that's been governing Tasmania in a very sensible and balanced way, and in a way that has been achieving for our state and improving our state's stocks—that is, they can support the Hodgman Liberal government.

A lot is said at election time. A lot is said here in this place. A lot is said in the media. But my firm belief is that the best way to actually inform yourself as a Tasmanian voter is to go and test the facts, to go and look at the records of those who are seeking your vote at the election. Go and see what they've done and measure it against what they say they're going to do after the next election, should they be successful. There's a great example going around at the moment of the baseless scare campaign being run by my Labor colleagues from Tasmania around GST—the notion that the state will lose funding because of some report, when we all know that there are some very, very well set out mechanisms that any decision relating to the carve-up of the GST revenue have to go through. It will not happen. That's the thing; it's a baseless scare campaign. We have to look at the facts in these debates.

As part of assessing how the state is performing and how it was performing back in 2014, when the Hodgman Liberal government took over, I think it's good to reflect on where the state was at just those four years ago, when Tasmania was regarded by most across the country as a basket case. We were at the bottom of the heap on all of the economic indicators in most of the reports—the CommSec State of the Statesreport, the Deloitte Access Economics reports, most of our employment figures. Every single indicator on those fronts had us at the bottom of the pack in 2014. We had a government in denial about an education system which was just plainly not serving the people that needed something from it—the students. We had schools finishing at year 10 and the Labor-Greens government at the time thought that was okay. They resisted at every turn the calls to extend our high schools to year 12 to give young people the proper secondary education they deserved. It's happening now, and I'm very pleased about that. That government presided over a broken health system, some facts about which I will talk about in a moment. They wreaked havoc on regional communities, presiding over the closure of the very successful forestry industry in our state. Regional communities right across our state were decimated because Labor had done a deal with the Greens and the price for that deal in our state was the closure of our very successful and viable forestry industry. Small communities right across our state suffered.

It's important, as I say, to look at the facts. Look at jobs as the first indicator. The unemployment rate in 2014, the year the last state election took place, was at 7.5 per cent, one of the highest in the nation against all of our other states and territories. It's currently at 5.9 per cent, a decrease of 1.6 per cent. When we look at jobs, we look at the number of Tasmanians who have jobs now and didn't before. In 2014, 235,200 people were recorded as having jobs or meaningful employment. As at today, 245,500—an increase of 10,300—have jobs; 10,300 Tasmanian families are doing better because they now have the best form of welfare—a job. A job is a way to improve their lives and to improve the chances for the next generation in their family, and something to be proud of. Something I've spoken about a lot in this place is youth employment. The number of young people that had jobs in 2014 was just 34,900. That's increased to 37,300, an increase of almost 3,000 jobs in that same period.

A lot is said about budget management and fiscal responsibility. In 2014, again, when the Liberals took over from Labor and the Greens, the state was running a deficit of $375 million. Today, under the Liberals, we have a budget surplus of $54.3 million. The budget is how we pay for essential services, like doctors and nurses, police and teachers, better roads. That's how we pay for these things, and good budget management allows us to do that and to make Tasmania a better place.

Power prices: we talk about the cost of living a lot. Between 2007 and 2014, power prices in Tasmania went up 65 per cent. We've arrested that increase, that rising power price, and have seen a reduction—a small one, but a reduction, no longer an increase—of 0.4 per cent between 2014-17. We've stopped the outflow of people from Tasmania, with an increase in population, albeit small, of 741 people, in line with the policy to increase Tasmania's population. We've increased the number of frontline police officers that the Giddings Labor-Green government cut. When we came to government there were just 1,120; there are now 1,217, with another 20 officers to graduate in March of this year.

The number of teachers—our education system is very important—was 4,437 in 2014 and 4,545 in 2018. That's over 100 extra teachers in our schools. And we can't forget that the Labor-Green government wanted to close 20 schools in regional communities. They didn't get away with it; the parliament wouldn't let them. Imagine what that would have done for teacher numbers? The retention of students from year 10 to year 12 has gone from 67 per cent to 73 per cent. That is a great indicator of how our policy to extend high school to year 12 is netting results, something the Labor-Green government in Tasmania resisted at every turn.

On the number of elective surgeries: yesterday we heard that the Tasmanian health system is in crisis. Let me tell you this, Mr Acting Deputy President: in 2014, 15,315 elective surgeries were conducted. In 2018 it was 19,187, a 25 per cent increase in the number of elective surgeries being conducted, putting the lie to the fibs that are told by certain people out there in the community. It is something that people need to know the facts about: the report card that is now on the public record. And of course we have 120 additional hospital beds and 350 more hospital staff, including over 255 more nurses. Again, that is a workforce that the Labor-Green government tried to cut, and did cut successfully, sadly, in their 16 years of government—four years of which were with their bedfellows, the Greens.

We've had more visitors coming on the Spirit of Tasmania30 per cent more visitors. We're growing the economy and we're growing jobs, so Tasmanians have a very clear choice. They can return to the dark old days of destruction, cuts and irresponsible decisions—anything to cling onto power—with a Labor-Green-Jacqui Lambie government in Tasmania, or they can vote Liberal and have more of this: taking Tasmania to the next level.