Michael Ferguson,Liberal Member for Bass
Labor's last resort leader Rebecca White resumes her role tomorrow as Labor leader and while I welcome her return to work, Ms White faces a range of issues, some of her own making, on which she needs to act, straight away.
Now that she is back, Ms White needs to immediately:
- Explain her deliberately misleading statements in Parliament where she continued to misrepresent statements she made to the ABC, which were called out as incorrect by the Integrity Commission; apologise; and correct the record as soon as possible;
- Provide an overdue update on the David O'Byrne internal investigation (amid claims that the review process is a sham and the victim has been "slut shamed") and what Mr O'Byrne's future will be in the Parliament, along with explaining what she knew before the leadership vote;
- Find out what the outcomes are from the internal investigation into Labor State President Ben McGregor and whether he is still threatening legal action against her; and
- Give an update on the Federal review into Labor's disastrous election result, and deal with her bitterly-divided Labor team.
In her years and two election losses as leader, Ms White has offered no policies or plan for our State, and ran a series of dishonest scare campaigns at the last election that were comprehensively rejected by voters with Labor's vote going backwards in every single electorate.
It might be Rebecca White 2.0 – but it's the same old Labor in chaos, dominated by the same old 'hard Left factional powerbrokers' that Shane Broad said "pushed out" Ms White initially; then installed Mr O'Byrne; and then re-installed the failed former leader herself.
It is difficult to see what will change under a re-varnished White-led Opposition.
In contrast, our majority Liberal Government is getting on with the real job of securing Tasmania's future by delivering our clear Plan for all Tasmanians, and this will be reflected in the upcoming State Budget which will fund all of our election commitments.
