Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was at the check-out in my local supermarket a month ago when a bloke about my age shouted across at me, 'Hey, Lambie, what are you doing about these supermarket prices?' He was obviously agitated and very upset. 'I've got three boys,' he said, 'and I don't know how the hell I'm going to feed them.' The Tasmanians around me were obviously nervous. To lower the temperature and calm things down, I walked up to him and took his hands in mine. I told him that I knew what it was like to be standing at the check-out, a sick feeling in your gut, looking at your shopping and trying to work out what you can do without: if you'll be eating cereal while your kids are eating a square meal. For people like me, politicians on a decent wage, the cost-of-living crisis is just a headline, but for many Australians it's a daily struggle—it's real—to keep their heads above water. And what is the Tasmanian government doing? Knocking 15 bucks off our power bills—whoopee.

When the PwC scandal broke, I wanted to find out how much the Tasmanian government had been spending on consultants, so I asked the good people at the Parliamentary Library to find out. Blow me over—it was even worse than I had thought. From 2016 to 2023, the Tasmanian government spent a whopping $81 million on consultants. That's $81 million of Tasmanian taxpayers' money. Besides that shocking number, the other interesting part of this report is the many, many changes the current Tasmanian Liberal government have made since they were elected. This includes whole departments moving to different portfolios; departments changing their name, being created anew or ceasing to exist at all; and in some cases ministerial portfolios being reorganised every year. Is that why they needed to spend 81 million bucks of Tasmania's money on consultants—so they could produce lots of nice glossy brochures rejigging numbers to suit the government's spin? How about the Tasmanian government spends less money on consultants and more money helping people like the dad I ran into in the supermarket, so he can feed his boys?