Minister Felix Ellis is not a responsible steward of taxpayer money, wasting more than $173,000 spruiking his unfair fire tax only to dump it a few days later.
Right to Information shows that Minister Ellis spent $173,000 trying to convince Tasmanians his fire tax was a good one at a time when many Tasmanians are doing it tough with the cost of living.
This is despite Minister Ellis being on the record as saying:
"It's important to note as well that we're talking about taxpayers' money and it's important that we are always prudent with taxpayers' money and ensuring that we're not seeing wasted expenditure".
This is completely hypocritical and nothing more than lip service from the Minister who clearly does not care and was more than willing to push through this tax and slap households with a 300 per cent increase on their levies.
Rather than prudently handle the state's coffers, this is another prime example of the Rockliff Minority Government completely mismanaging the budget and brazenly wasting taxpayers' money.
That amount of money could have been much better spent on essential government services not on advertising a tax that Tasmanians cannot afford.
Instead of splashing this cash, Minister Ellis should have been coming up with a modern, well-equipped and fairly funded fire service and SES that protects all Tasmanians.
Now Tasmanians are preparing for another fire season without adequate resources and an over reliance on the goodwill of volunteers.
On Tuesday, December 5, in the Short Inquiry Process into TasTAFE Felix Ellis stated:
1:13:38: "It's important to note as well that we're talking about taxpayers' money and it's important that we are always prudent with taxpayers' money and ensuring that we're not seeing wasted expenditure. People, including the people who we train and teach, have to work bloody hard to make that money and pay it as taxes through to us so we always need to be responsible stewards."
1:15:29: "…it's important that we're responsible stewards of taxpayers' money. You just have to look at Victoria at the moment with the absolute disaster that their budget is in to see what happens when you have complete failure of public administration with a Labor government that cannot manage money."
Tuesday, December 5, 2023: https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/committees/legislative-council/sessional-committees/govadmina/current-inquiries/short-inquiry-process-into-tastafe/broadcasts/tuesday-5-december-2023
Shane Broad MP
Shadow Treasurer
