Five weeks have passed since Premier Peter Gutwein made the move to call an election for May 1.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And now, with election day here, The Examiner asked all three leaders of Tasmania's major parties to provide their final pitch to voters before they cast their ballot today. Below are the unedited version of no particular order.
Clear, stable plan forward: Liberals
This election is about who can deliver the strong, stable majority government needed to secure Tasmania's future.
As last week's lockdown in Western Australia showed, COVID-19 is not over yet, and many Tasmanians are still getting back on their feet.
But our economy is growing again. Just this week CommSec reported that Tasmania is Australia's best performing economy for the fifth quarter in a row. Unemployment is down and our job numbers are back at pre-pandemic levels.
Tasmanians have shown great courage, resilience, compassion and kindness over the past year.
We are in a good place, but there is a long road ahead, and Tasmania needs certainty.
- Peter Gutwein
Our plan will deliver the certainty Tasmania needs by:
- Making the decisions necessary to continue keeping Tasmanians safe and secure from Covid-19;
- Delivering a more diverse and resilient economy to create jobs and help protect against future challenges;
- Securing the health and other essential services all Tasmanians rely on; and
- Ensuring young Tasmanians can get the training, apprenticeships, and jobs for their future.
Our strong economy has allowed us to make significant new investments in Health and other areas.
In particular, since coming to office the Liberals have increased the health budget by $4 billion - up 70 per cent on the last Labor-Green budget.
We have employed an extra 760 nurses and more than 700 other allied health professionals, including more than 230 doctors and administrative staff.
During the campaign we have spelt out clear plans for our $580 upgrade at the LGH, a new co-located private hospital adjacent to it, and significant upgrades to both the Mersey and North-West Regional hospitals.
And we will oversee the $700 million redevelopment of the Tarraleah power station. Our agriculture and advanced manufacturing policies are designed to build on our unique strengths and place Tasmania at the forefront of both sectors.
Our potential to produce hydrogen at Bell Bay using Tasmania's totally renewable electricity sources is a wonderful opportunity and we're determined to take full advantage of it.
My team and I have been decisive and held firm during the COVID-19 crisis, and together with Tasmanians have helped Tasmania become one of the safest places in the world.
On the other hand, Labor's a mess. They're at war with themselves. Their president has threatened legal action against their leader and their leader said their president is unfit for office. If you can't govern yourselves, you can't govern the state.
On top of that, Labor's $3 billion election spendathon is unaffordable, unbelievable and undeliverable.
No opinion poll or commentator believes Labor can win a majority. But we all know they'll do a deal with the anti-everything Greens if there is a hung Parliament - just like they did last time.
That means that a vote for Labor, Greens or an independent is a vote for an unstable, and indecisive minority government.
Every election is a choice, and this one is no different.
- Peter Gutwein
The choice this time is between a majority Gutwein Liberal government with a clear plan to secure Tasmania's future, or a hung parliament and another dysfunctional Labor-Green minority Government which can't make decisions and will take our state backwards.
The only way to deliver the certainty Tasmania needs is by voting for your Liberal candidates.
A better, fairer direction: Labor
Today's election is a vote on what sort of future we want for Tasmania.
After seven years of Liberal government neglect, too many Tasmanians have been left behind - homelessness is on the rise, health waiting lists are blowing out and our unemployment rate is the highest in the country.
Most concerningly of all, Tasmania's health system is on the verge of collapse.
- Rebecca White
We have the longest ambulance waiting times in the country, the elective surgery waiting list is up by 71 per cent since the last election and the Launceston General Hospital has the worst bed block of any public hospital in the nation.
As Treasurer, Peter Gutwein has presided over seven years and $1.6 billion in health cuts. He owns this crisis. Yet, nothing he has said during this election campaign will fix it and he has no plan to solve it.
Labor, on other hand, will take immediate action.
Our Health Action Plan will start from day one of a majority Labor government and it will mean more doctors, more appointments and less waiting.
We will employ permanent doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to work in our major hospitals, our rural hospitals and our community health centres. We will make sure all 54 ambulance stations have paramedics 24/7.
Labor will progress the LGH Masterplan and the co-location of the Calvary Hospital and, importantly, we will build a 10-bed dedicated palliative care hospice to provide dignity and peace to people at their end of life.
And, we will provide seven days a week bulk-billed urgent care at 10 GP Extended Care Clinics statewide, including in Launceston.
The one in eight Tasmanians waiting for health care deserve better than another four years of Liberal neglect and, with a Labor government, people know they will have an expert Health Minister in Dr Bastian Seidel who can actually solve the problems.
Labor will also get straight to work addressing the chaos and anguish caused by the Liberals' appalling neglect of housing and homelessness.
Too many can't afford to buy a home, or find safe and affordable rental accommodation for their families.
More than 3800 Tasmanian families are languishing on the public housing waiting list and, on average, even families considered in the most urgent need will wait more than a year to be housed.
Labor will build 3500 new social houses to help thousands of Tasmanians get a roof over their heads and build for the future.
We will install solar panels and batteries on homes and schools, with energy efficiency upgrades to social housing properties to build safer, more energy-efficient homes and save tenants money on their bills. We will provide free lunches to all primary school students to lead to better educational engagement and put kids on a better path to the future.
We will create 35,000 jobs, rebuild TAFE and offer free TAFE courses in areas of workforce shortage to grow our economy and build a better and fairer Tasmania.
With the help of all, we made it through the tough times - but there is so much more to our future than overcoming COVID-19.
- Rebecca White
Tasmanians need secure employment, decent healthcare, affordable housing, and a good education - and only Labor has a plan that will deliver. Tasmania's health system can't survive 11 years of a Liberal government. A majority Labor government will work for all.
To solve the health crisis there is only one choice - you must vote 1-5 for Labor.
Time to oppose to power, influence: Greens
Love us or not, the Tasmanian Greens have been part of this island's political landscape for the past forty years.
In Parliament, we've been a lone but a strong voice for wild Tasmania, for climate action, a fairer deal for people living at the margins and for transparency in government.
The Greens represent Tasmanians who want integrity in politics and to see this beautiful island and its people looked after.
- Cassy O'Connor
The Greens went in to this campaign making the case to build back greener and fairer from COVID, take real climate action and make sure no one is left behind. We're the only party that's announced a real climate plan in this campaign. We hear the pleas of young people.
They want a safe climate and we are here for them.
Our plan invests in the skills and jobs of the future, and a fair go for workers. It funds community health, hospitals, nurses and paramedics and the construction of 8000 new, energy-efficient homes by 2030.
By making big corporations pay their share, all of this is possible. In Tasmania, big mining, gambling, logging and fish farming corporations make their political donations and pay some of the lowest royalties and license fees in the country.
If the mining industry had been paying even the national average in royalties over the past 10 years, the state budget would be more than $460 million better off.
You need people in Parliament who will name this up and push for change.
We are truth tellers - when we say it, we mean it and we stay true.
- Cassy O'Connor
Tasmanians have been sent to the polls a year early by a Liberal government that had a workable majority on the floor of Parliament.
The Premier wants us to remember how he handled the pandemic, and forget the chronic underfunding of health and housing over the past seven years. He'd like us all to forget that on his watch, ancient carbon-sink forests are being flattened and burned, while our shared waterways are being taken over and polluted by industrial salmon farming.
Mr Gutwein would also very much like us to forget that at the last election, gambling industry money got the Liberals over the line, and their payback will be in the extension of poker machines in pubs and clubs until 2043.
As we now know, after signing a secret Memorandum of Understanding with the gambling industry, Labor has the same position on pokies as the Liberals.
For that matter, the Liberal and Labor parties also have the same policies on native forest logging, industrial fish farm expansion and cracking down on the right to peaceful protest. They really are two sides of the one coin. We will fight for an independent Environment Protection Authority that isn't an enabler of polluting industries, and for fish farms to get out of our pristine waters and on to land. And, we're aren't in the gambling industry's pocket.
READ MORE: Who to vote for is no easy decision
We want pokies out of pubs and clubs.
Today, I urge you to vote for a party with the courage to stand up to the power and influence of the big corporates, that will look after the place and really put the future of our children and grandchildren first.
Vote 1-5 Green.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner