Legislative Council Thursday 21 March 2019

We have a Bill before us that seeks to achieve a number of changes, the intent of which I fully support. Tasmania does need to be compliant with Commonwealth Law, in this case, the Marriage Act 1961, so the so-called ‘no forced divorce’ provision contained within this Bill does need to proceed as soon as possible as we are already non-compliant since December 10th last year.

When the debate last year didn’t occur on the second reading, all Members of this place made speeches on the adjournment regarding this and I won’t revisit that matter at this time. I was, like I assume most other Members were, ready to debate the second reading of the Bill but we didn’t even get that far. 

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ELECTIONS are a great way of deciding who we want to sit on the Treasury benches but they’re a flawed means of deciding particular policies, especially vexed questions like pokie policy.

The Liberals deservedly won the 2014 election because they hadn’t done enough wrong. Electors, however, didn’t give them carte blanche approval to do whatever they wanted. Rather they were given the right to put forward a detailed proposal for consideration. My role as a Legislative Councillor is to scrutinise any proposal on behalf of my constituents.

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THE Treasurer’s Revised Estimates Report issued in late January has removed any doubts as to the financial position of the state.

In two years the Government will need external borrowings. Outlays will exceed receipts for the next four years even if the health system remains underfunded.

To paraphrase Paul Keating, they’re the deficits we had to have.

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