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

Saul Eslake has delivered his report on the state of Tasmania's books, and it's not pretty. We are broke. According to Mr Eslake, Tasmania's financial position will become worse than that of any other state or territory, including Victoria and the Northern Territory, over the next three years. Drawing on publicly available information, the review also found that the deterioration in the financial position of Tasmania's general government sector is entirely attributable to poor public policy decisions by the government. So, when the Tasmanian Liberals signed off on an uncapped budget for an AFL stadium at Macquarie Point, they knew what a shocking state our books were in, and they still signed off on uncapped funding for a new AFL stadium at Macquarie Point. They knew we were broke.

The Tasmanian Liberals also knew what a dire state our health, education and housing sectors were in. Tasmanians are selling their cars to buy private health insurance because the 12-month wait for the policy to kick in is quicker than being on the elective surgery list, public school teachers are posting on Facebook begging for relief teachers, and a quarter of all Tasmanian young people aged between 12 and 24 are homeless. But, instead of looking after our most vulnerable people and spending a relatively small amount of money on the UTAS Stadium in Launceston to make it bigger and better, the Tasmanian Liberals have committed Tasmanians to a stadium the cost of which most respected experts say will blow out to over a billion dollars, a stadium which will destroy sightlines to the cenotaph and which, just as importantly, will leave our kids with a debt they will never, ever be able to repay. That is what the state Liberal Party of Tasmania is doing to the people of Tasmania.