Michael Ferguson,Minister for State Growth
Credit to the Greens for doing the hard work and presenting an Alternative budget, unlike Labor. However as usual it is simply a grab bag of kooky Greens policies.
Like Labor's failed shack tax, they propose to introduce a vacant residence tax - now is not the time to be taxing Tasmanians.
Cutting roads and bridges funding by $480 million, during Road Safety Week, at a time we need to connect and see our family more and at a time we need to make freight routes more efficient and productive for business.
They will defund our highly successful Office of the Coordinator-General, create instead a new bureaucracy in a new Tasmanian Employment Office, with $6 million per year, and increase the size of Parliament at a cost of $12 million. Clearly the only jobs these measures would create is in a Labor-Green Government!
They propose renaming the Department of State Growth to the Department of State Planning, which would really only mean the Department of Anti-growth, stifling investment and jobs in red and green tape. This is no way for the economy to recover.
The Greens want to slash infrastructure projects, de-fund important tourism initiatives and infrastructure, and gut major industries like racing and forestry - just like the last time they formed government with their obedient friends in the Labor Party.
Like Labor, the Greens have four years of deficits, more net debt and have no pathway back to surplus.
However, at least they have had a crack at costing their policies and explaining how they would pay for them. It appears they have become the unofficial Opposition.
