Legislative Council, 24 March 2023

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - Mr President, I am pleased to follow the Leader, because I have a slightly different take on some things. It will not be a surprise to the Leader.

Mr President, why does the Premier, and premiers before him, find it necessary to remind us in every State of the State address - something the Leader did not refer to - that his side of politics have delivered since coming to power in 2014, that things would have been so much worse if the other lot were still sitting on the Treasury benches.

Seriously, Mr President, we did not have to wait long before the Premier trotted out the old chestnut, and I quote:

To know where we're going, it's important to reflect on the past and what Tasmania was like under the former Labor/Green Government.

Mr President, you rarely find the future in the rear-view mirror, if that is where you keep focusing your attention; unless of course it is because you really do not have a vision or a plan for the future and the past is all you can draw on and draw any attention to. If you are really that interested in the past, perhaps you should have a closer look at the Liberal's Plan for a Better Future, which they took to the 2014 election; which they won -and I assume they have been busy implementing it since then.

Mr Willie - And analyse their targets.

Ms FORREST - Let us look at how the Government has gone, over the last nine years. We are looking at the past, that is what the Premier did. Policy initiative 64 was to balance the budget. How is that going? Is it likely to happen in any of our lifetimes? I do not think so. Policy initiative 66 was to make the General Government sector net debt free. Likewise, there is no foreseeable chance of that ever happening. One only has to look at the fiscal sustainability report if you are not sure of that. Policy initiative 50 was to require all taxpayer owned businesses to report quarterly, a policy I was pleased to see. We are still waiting.

Still vivid in my memory was the commitment to spend $76 million over four years to reduce the elective surgery backlog. If only that was all that was needed. The diagnosis was wrong, and the treatment prescribed was hopelessly inadequate. Ask any of those thousands of people who are on waiting lists. Even more vivid is the Liberals' commitment to increase our revenue by $15 million over four years by making criminals pay and by increasing fines. This was the only revenue increase the Liberals thought was necessary to meet future needs. We were going to fix our budgetary problems by doing a bit of paper shuffling and getting wrongdoers to pay a bit more. It completely trivialised the challenges ahead.

Sadly, that is the legacy that is still with us. The Government wants us to believe that they will solve our budgetary problems without the need for any revenue changes. The longer they persist with peddling this myth, the harder it will be to make any changes. The past does, indeed, have some lessons for us. But both sides of politics give us plenty of material for history lessons.

In raising these matters, I am not at all interested in defending the Labor Party, they can do that themselves. I am speaking for the people of Tasmania who are heartily sick of the silly, adversarial barbs thrown by opposing parties, largely based on misrepresenting the person's position, that preventing us from having an adult conversation about our future. If the Government was confident about their achievements, they would not need to sledge their opponents for what happened 10 years ago. After 10 years, one would have thought their achievements would speak for themselves.

The Premier may think it is important to dwell in the past, but it is more important to give an accurate description of the present and some vision and plan for the future. That is what the State of the State address fails to do. The Premier said the hallmark of this Liberal Government has always been strong budget management. A revised Estimates report released this month confirms - obviously this State of the State address was given a little time ago, it was released in February - a significant improvement in our net operating balance, the fiscal balance and net debt. These results, he said, put us in a strong position to weather economic headwinds, as repeated by the Leader, and to allow us to continue our strategic investments in cost of living relief, health and housing for Tasmanians.

All that has happened is that things are not quite as bad as were budgeted back in May 2022. This is mainly due to extra GST. We cannot really claim that as progress. We are still spending more than we receive, which means net debt is gradually increasing.

Moving onto the Hydro, the Premier said:

But make no mistake, we are still facing challenges as we grow as a state. Hydro isn't cheap to maintain, and it doesn't generate all the energy we will need for the future as demand grows.

Reading between the lines, what the Premier was saying is that Hydro has a portfolio of ageing assets that are becoming more expensive to maintain. We know that. But let us be honest and upfront about it. Some, like Tarraleah, for instance, would probably be closed down but for the federal government offer to provide funds to upgrade as part of the Battery of the Nation boondoggle.

Moving onto Marinus - the State of the State noted, and I think the Leader repeated this bit:

We need to be connected to the national grid so that we play our part in helping Australia and the rest of the world meet its emissions targets, and so we can sell excess energy when we have it, and import power if we need it. That is why Marinus is important.

The Premier said:

Make no mistake, pulling out of the national network would see power bills soar and make it even harder to keep the lights on.

That is what the Premier said.

Okay, so Marinus is needed to sell excess energy to mainland and import it if we need it. That sounds like exactly the same reason for Basslink. In that event, why does the Government not tell us about the costs and benefit of Basslink before we go head-long into another one? They must know the figures. If they were favourable to the Government's case, they would have been released, would they not? Or am I just being unnecessarily cynical, perhaps?

When the Government asks us, the taxpayers, to fund a new interconnector, is the first question that should be answered not, 'how is the existing interconnector working, and how has it worked'? When we look at the whole project, is this actually a good ideal for us?

I went to a recent Australian Institute of Company Directors governance summit in Melbourne. People I talk to there and subsequently, are stunned that the Tasmanian public have no idea what a debacle Basslink has been. An interconnector designed to take advantage of arbitrage trading, but likely to have failed to generate enough revenue to cover the facility fee. We should be told about Basslink before we go ahead with Marinus.

Talking about the lights going off without Marinus and the NEM is fear-mongering and disingenuous at best. Basslink still exists, and wind power has doubled since the 2016 Basslink outage. We can still be connected to the national grid or the NEM, but delink our retail prices from the Victorian wholesale prices. We have done it before. Major industrials buy their electricity from the NEM, but they end up paying fixed prices due to the contractor side arrangements with Hydro. Why not structure a similar deal with Aurora Energy so retail customers pay lower prices? TasNetworks does not have to charge customers the full AER determined price. I do recall some years ago when Don Challen was the chair of TasNetworks, former secretary for Treasury, was then, charge less than the AER prices for its services. There was a bit of pressure from the major industrials at the time. I remember that we all received briefings from the major industrials at the time. It can do it again. It could make that decision to charge less than the full AER determination.

Marinus is not needed to keep prices down in Tasmania. We need to recognise we can remain in the NEM, whilst preserving the right to set retail prices as we wish. It is not one or the other. We can remain in the NEM and delink our retail prices from Victorian wholesale prices. If that is what it takes, then why are we not talking about that?

I want to take it very clear, I am all for development of renewable energy, in the right place, with the appropriate and comprehensive assessment processes. It is the matter of Marinus I wish to question.

In that vein, it was pleasing to see the two-page spread in the Sunday Tasmanian last weekend that promoted renewable energy in Tasmania without mentioning Marinus. I thought it was a welcome push for a change of policy. That was until Monday's Mercury, which I saw the Mercury publish articles fully promoting Marinus without any reference to the unanswered questions Tasmanians really need to have the answers to.

I hope we can all, including media outlets, keep an open mind on this as there are many people with much more knowledge in this area than me who have shared their very genuine concerns with me, including people who work in this area all the time. Not just in Tasmania, but in major energy sectors on the mainland. I have talked to them about it. They cannot see how this is going to actually help Tasmania. These are people who watch it on a day-to-day basis.

For those of you wondering who is paying for the stepped-up campaign to sell Marinus, which you would be aware there is a fairly good campaign going on -

Mr Willie - It is the taxpayer.

Ms FORREST - Yes. Who is paying for this campaign to sell Marinus to an increasingly skeptical public? It is probably part of the $1 million contract awarded to TasNetworks to spruikers Design East and its associates, including a local outfit Font PR. If you are wondering why such a huge outlay on consultants was not disclosed in TasNetwork's annual report then worry no more. I have the answer. Let me put your mind at rest. This is over the level that requires disclosure in the annual report. The $1 million outlay is not for consultancy work. Those payments were to contractors who do not have to be disclosed. They are not consultants. They are contractors.

The Treasurer's Instructions require consultancies over $50 000 to be disclosed, but as I understand it, if the consultants work under the supervision - I say 'supervision' in inverted commas - of a manager of the organisation to which they are contracted to, they are not consultants but contractors. Rest easy, Mr President. The Liberals' 2014 commitment to reduce consultancies has not necessarily been breached. They are all contractors. Who would have thought? A creative use of the Treasurer's Instructions indeed, some could call it a loophole that can and is being used to avoid scrutiny or at least make it harder to find.

Perhaps, if the Treasurer's Instructions can be sidestepped so easily it is time to change the instructions. There will be some time for questions to follow this on a matter at a later time, particularly how the work of these PR firms is apportioned as consultancy work and what work is determined contract work, how this so called supervision is applied to the contract of work et cetara. The Leader might like to be prepared for some questions to follow on these matters.

At best it is creative; at worst, misleading. Members may be aware that some of the work of these PR firms is to monitor public comments and look at ways to neutralise the public comments that are not singing totally in tune with the Government song sheet. I know they have a file on me which is quite gratifying really, to think they are taking that much notice of what I am saying, which is great. At least they are listening and having to think about directly countering my comments or organising a briefing for me to make me better informed. I have been offered the briefing with the CEO of TasNetworks to be better informed and found that briefing interesting but it did not answer the questions I have, and that many of the people I represent have, and many of people I do not directly represent, but the people of Tasmania have.

There are so many unanswered questions and scrutiny required in the energy sector and three word slogans from the minister have nothing to assist the public understanding, except there is one four word slogan he does not use any more - Tasmanian First Energy Policy - he does not use that any more. Perhaps the reason for the avalanche of publicity about renewable energy is Government polling is telling them that the Marinus is not too popular, particularly with the inability to accuracy tell us the whole truth related to Basslink and what we need to know about Marinus.

We are not being told the whole truth. We need to be told how energy businesses will benefit with the proposed energy developments. If TasNetworks is to benefit it will need to earn more from fees and charges, will it not? However, will extra TasNetworks revenue not flow to higher retail prices, the component which is the networking charges? There are a lot of answers needed. I will keep asking them and I appreciate I had a whole swathe of answers on Basslink than Marinus and related matters through the Leader this week after I put them on the Notice Paper last year. However, I will keep asking them. There are still more questions and I and many others are deeply concerned we are heading a path that will not benefit Tasmania or Tasmanians. A lack of detail, both in our existing arrangement with Basslink and now the proposed Marinus Link should deeply concern us all.

We are spending more on health each year. That does not warrant any brownie points because our population has increased, our ageing demographic, our inability to provide preventative health care and part of that is a federal government responsibility, but if we were not spending much more, imagine how bad it would be, it does not bear thinking about. Only when we start seeing a reduction in the gap between what is needed and what is being delivered can the government start queuing up for brownie points, otherwise it is a fail.

How are we ever going to close the gap in the delivery of our health services that Tasmanians need if our revenue sources are growing less and the demand for health services is increasing? There are many reasons why that demand is increasing and I have just mentioned some of them. While we were responding to the State of the State claims about progress being made in health, let me remind you of another one of the Liberal's 2014 policy initiatives, this is policy initiative 73. Many members will recall this when I name it. This was to have the healthiest population in Australia by 2025. Well, how is that going?

Ms Rattray - I am healthy.

Ms FORREST - Yes, a lot of people I represent are not too healthy, I am sad to say, but that is not necessarily a fault of their own. It is often the circumstances they live in, the fact that they cannot get in to see a GP or get health care in a timely manner and their condition deteriorates while they are on waiting lists.

I think we all know the answer to that, it has not really improved and we certainly have not got to that healthiest population by 2025, as we see so many of the people who visit us at our electorate offices would confirm that as a true reality, sadly, for these people. Making a lot of promises has the effect of casting a pall of disbelief over their other subsequent promises. Who can you actually trust?

On a more positive note, I welcome some of the measures noted in the Premier's address, including the announcement of a partnership with a federal government for the $13 million jointly-funded project to trial a single employer model for GPs and rural generalists in training. This was a recommendation from the rural health inquiry, a shame it was not mentioned to acknowledge the work of the committee, because it actually happened after the committee tabled its report. Anyway, I am really pleased to see it happen; it will make a big difference and the people who advocated for this are very grateful and very pleased to see that it has actually occurred.

I know it is a pilot, but I am pretty confident it will prove to be an appropriate measure. On that note, I thank the Leader for providing a copy of the Government's response to that during the break before we came back, once it was available. I look forward to more progress on the vast majority of recommendations which the Government supported, as the member for Launceston did with the road safety one. Depending on whether I am back in May or not, I will bring forward the Government's response to the rural health inquiry for further consideration and debate.

I also welcome the additional funding to GPs and pharmacies that the Leader referred to, providing more after-hours care in local communities around the state. Again, we are stepping into an area of federal government responsibility and I urge the Premier and minister for Health to keep the pressure on the feds to address this critical area of service delivery. I know he is, but this has to be addressed, it is not the state's responsibility to fund GPs or much of the pharmaceutical side of it.

In addition, as the Leader alluded to, the decision to enable Tasmanian pharmacists to supply a month of medicines after a patient's prescription runs out when a GP is unavailable will be welcome, but it is only a stopgap measure. Basically, the person has to demonstrate that they have not been able to get an appointment with a GP. I spoke to my local pharmacist about this. If a person is unable to get the appointment with their GP, their prescription has run out and they will need another supply before they can get an appointment, there is a certain schedule of medication available. It does not include everything, it is a limited formulary that has been developed. It covers a range of illnesses, but not all that you might think might be on it, but the pharmacist, and I assume all are using a similar approach, they will provide a letter to the patient to say, 'we have provided this to you, you need to get an appointment with your GP before we can provide any further supply'. They also send a letter to the GP saying, 'we have filled this prescription because this patient could not get an appointment to see you'. Hopefully they will then be prioritised so that they can get in within the month. That would be helpful in tracking the number of people who actually have to have a prescription filled by the pharmacist because they cannot actually see the GP in a timely manner.

We all know how hard it can be to see a GP. The rural health inquiry provided significant evidence, findings and recommendations related to this. As I said, it is a federal government responsibility, but I know that the Government has been responsible in stepping into this space to assist at times. It is a major challenge.

I rang up for a routine appointment with my GP recently, it was mid-February when I rang, and they said, 'we cannot fit you in until the March'. I said, 'that is fine', I did not want an appointment until April. They said, 'Oh, thank goodness for that'. The receptionists in GPs' surgeries must get enormous pressure with people getting really upset and frustrated they cannot get into see their GP.

Mr Willie - They just go the ED, it is free.

Ms FORREST - Yes, they will. If you live in Smithton or on the west coast, it is a fair way to go to the ED.

Mr Willie - I was talking about my constituents, that is what they tell me.

Ms FORREST - I bet they do. Yes, and end up being in a facility that is not ideal for their care.

I will speak specifically about some health-related matters in my electorate, in particular. In recent months I have had some of the worst stories told to me about the services being provided, or not, at the North West Regional Hospital. It saddens me to hear some these patients' accounts of the most unfortunate and disappointing outcomes that are often as a result of over-stretched staff, not enough staff. Generally, I hear stories of people who when they finally get into the hospital, the care is exemplary. I have heard some tragic stories, some of them related to medical practitioners who are no longer working now in that hospital. It is quite distressing to hear these and think, how could this have possibly have happened?

So many of these problems happen as a result of poor communication or lack of communication or a misunderstanding of the communication. There needs to be a much greater focus and emphasis on that to ensure that patients actually have a positive experience and a positive outcome to the absolute best chance they have. We know that some people have such serious health issues that they do not have positive outcomes, but I am not talking about those people in this.

The other point I really need to talk about is maternity services on the north-west coast. I am very aware of the extreme pressure and stress the midwives at the North West Private Hospital are under. They are understaffed. They are under enormous pressure. They have almost been vilified in the press when most of the pressures and reasons that sadly, and too many women are having traumatic birth experiences, but it is not because of them. It is because we have a private hospital providing a public maternity service, in a private model, where there are not enough staff and certainly not enough experienced staff. A lot of the experienced staff have left. Some were retirement age and that is not unexpected. It is going to be even more difficult now to recruit midwives to this hospital because of some of this coverage.

Thankfully, we got out of the evergreen agreement and I do commend this Government for actually managing to achieve that after I have been on about it for some years, and that is due to complete next year and the transition for that changeover is underway. To fully undertake this transition to ensure that public patients, their antenatal care, their labour and birth care and their post natal care is provided in a continuous model by one provider, we need to have a facility where that can be delivered. The Government have not commenced in any way, shape or form any building works to build a purpose built maternity unit. The have spent some money on the antenatal clinic and it is fabulous and it is great, but there is no facility at the North West Regional Hospital to enable this transition to occur outside of a private hospital.

I have had briefings on this and I appreciate that and I know that the plan is at this stage to lease back the facility and have the THS run that centre. The challenge with this is that there is only one labour and birth suite there and so you are still going to have the private patients in with public patients in the labour and birth suite. The private patients will no doubt go to the private wards. It will be managed by the North West Private Hospital under their private arrangements. I assume the other three or four bed wards and I think it is three single wards from memory, will be operated by THS and THS staff. I am not quite sure how this going to work. I am sure that the department does not fully either yet.

In addition to that, as these women who are being cared for now are predominately public women, they are not privately insured women, then we as a state have an obligation to those women to ensure they are well cared for. When the person under contract to deliver this service is not doing it in a way that is facilitating that, I would suggest it is a breach of your contract. I have talked to the minister and senior people in the department about this. Basically, can't we put THS midwives who provide the antenatal care under the THS banner and other midwives from the THS broadly, into this facility. I understand there are all sorts of employment, legal problems and all of that. They are looking at that and who carries the vicarious liability and all of that, but surely, we have to act and we have to do something to ensure there are adequate numbers of midwives to provide the care for these women.

There are many women and I have met a number of them. I have spoken to a number of them. They have been deeply traumatised. I understand from the media that the minister is meeting with some of them to talk about this. That is great. He will get the full bottle on that. I have said in my commentary on this that what the minister needs to do is ensure that these women are given urgent access to trauma informed counselling and support. Many of them have not had it. They also need to be treated for the post-traumatic stress disorder some of them are suffering, they need to have targeted and specific care because of their experiences. There may be other factors that have played into that but the reality is sadly, their birthing experience has created a whole heap of particular harm for them.

This is not a criticism of the midwives who are doing their very best they can and they have had an enormous amount of negative publicity pushed in their direction and that is not okay. It is the management of the hospital we need to be focusing on here and the decision making process on that. I met one woman who was a private patient but using the same facility, her waters had broken and normally there are protocols around how long you leave that before you get the labour going if it does not start spontaneously. She was booked to come in to have an induction when the labour did not progress, did not get started. She was told there was no room, go home. She went home, came back the next day, no room.

In desperation her obstetrician contacted Launceston to see if they could take here there. No. Thankfully, it was her first baby, she did not have other children to be concerned about. They had to drive to Hobart. This is an extraordinary story. She drove to Hobart, then had to do a full admission on arrival at the private hospital down here, meanwhile thinking what is happening with my baby? Imagine that. That is just one. She had a good outcome. The baby was healthy, mum is healthy. But it was a pretty difficult time. It should not have happened. I understand it was not because of lack of beds, it was because of lack of midwives, not enough staff. The private hospital still managed to do elective caesareans that day.

They are deeply concerning matters to me. We do need the Government to really step up on that transition and do whatever they can in the interim to get enough staff in that facility. They need to get started on plans for a purpose-built maternity suite, with labour and birthing rooms, post-natal wards and ante-natal wards to enable a proper separation and enable these public women to be cared for in appropriate settings with THS staff and midwives.

Another thing I wanted to raise, again this comes from a federal government responsibility - I have not spoken to the family about this - is that there are two other things that are particularly at issue in making it difficult to attract health professionals to our region in the north-west particularly. It is probably the same in other parts of the state, but I have not been talking to people around other parts of the state. The first thing is a lack of child care. Again, a federal government responsibility. However, I have been talking to some child care providers, particularly on King Island for example, where they are trying to recruit nurses as much as they are doctors, more so nurses because doctors are managed by Ochre Health - they ring up first the child care centre to see if they can get their child or children in. When they are told no, there is a 12 month wait, that is right across my whole area, 12-month wait, they go somewhere else. They come to Launceston or they come to Hobart and we lose them from the north-west.

The worst story I heard from one provider was a doctor who is working at the Mersey, who has on a rural generalist training pathway. She already had one child. She had that child in child care. She was having or had another baby - I am not sure, I was just flabbergasted when I heard the story - but she was having this other baby and she wanted to get the child into child care so she could continue to work because she is obligated to. They could not get the child in anywhere. Her choice - I am not sure what the upshot of it was in the end, but her only solution she could think was to send both her children, including the new baby, back to Samoa where she came from.

How could that even be considered an option? Whilst it is not the state Government's responsibility to ensure there is child care, but if we are going to attract staff to our hospitals, this is the same on King Island, King Island child care is full, then there may be a few gaps here and there, but not a full-time place for a child there, then what will we do? We have to find a way to assist these families. There was a question I asked the Leader during this week about housing for families with four and six children. There are nurses who are wanting to come to King Island to work, but there is no housing. I think a couple of them had four children, one had six, big families. Great for the school at King Island, but there is no housing, so they do not come. I think the children would have been more school aged, than little ones.

It is not just the number of staff; it is also the other barriers to attracting the staff that we need. They are bigger issues and the Government only has indirect responsibility if you like, but they do have a responsibility to provide health care workers. It is a bit of a conundrum, in a way. I will continue to advocate for those matters and hopefully get the Government to be more attuned to that, so that maybe there are ways that we can see access to childcare and housing prioritised when we are trying to get health workers here. If we do not have them, then we end up with a situation like in the North West Private Hospital in the birthing services not enough staff.

Moving on, there has been a distinct tendency by governments of all persuasions to rely on big project announcements to demonstrate they are doing something. We have seen this recently with the federal government's submarine announcement. Often, big projects are a distraction from the more pressing - but more difficult to solve - problems facing governments: questions like tax reform, health services and homelessness, just to name three.

I want to have a look at another Government project. Why we are actively seeking to raise our state population to 650 000? I heard the Treasurer say recently, 'we are likely to achieve that goal well ahead of schedule', when we know it will lead to even more pressure on our health system and our housing systems and more people sleeping on the street. Why is this a magnificent goal to be aiming for, until we have sorted out the rest of it? Do we not have a moral responsibility to solve those other problems, like our health system, lack of housing, childcare - those things that we need for people that are already here? I hope that we would solve these problems before lobbing for extra population which will make matters worse.

I have heard the argument for more population, but frankly, I do not accept it. We need more population to solve our aging problem. We do not have enough younger people of working age in an economy that has to look after an increasingly older cohort. That was the argument 20 years ago when former prime minister, John Howard, upped the migrant intake. Guess what? After 20 years, those migrants will be old and will need looking after, which will only worsen the problem that we were meant to solve. They will need younger people to look after them. It is little wonder that it is referred to as a population Ponzi scheme. It means that you keep needing new customers to pay for the older ones. As we age more quickly than other states, it is pretty obvious what is happening here.

In his press announcement that accompanied the revised Estimates report last month, the Treasurer bragged how increased population increases our GST share. The point really is, Mr President, if all states increase their populations at the same rate, the GST share will not change. If Tasmania's population increases, you can guarantee other states are as well. Even if they do change, there will be a delayed effect on GST shares and even then, there is a lot of doubt as to whether the increased GST will be enough to cover the extra cost of extra services needed in a state already straining to provide life's necessities.

Attracting more population is a perverse way to get more GST. Think about that. It is like having more kids to get more family allowance, Mr President. If family allowance fully covered the cost of raising a child, clothing them, feeding them, keeping them healthy, educating them, running them around until they have a driver's licence - even then you are probably still paying for the petrol - I think we all know the reality of that. It is a false notion.

Extra population obviously benefits the property lobby and Harvey Norman, but who else? Maybe a few employers wanting highly-skilled employees? We certainly should be attracting them.

We need to discuss the population policy. As with every economic policy decision, there are winners and losers. We need to consider the plight of the losers, before enthusiastically embracing plans designed by the winners.

That should apply to everything we do. It is not just, as the Government claims, a case of being either or pro- or anti-development. It is a simple matter of recognising the reality that for every winner, that is almost certainly a loser. As a government, there should be an obligation to deliver services that address the needs of all, including the potential losers.

Public policy needs to ensure that potential losers have their cases heard in the courts of public opinion, but sadly, many of the potential losers have difficulty being heard, drowned out by the Government mantra of 'jobs and growth', et cetera. This not to say that jobs and growth will not bring benefits. We just need to be sure they do not add to the burdens many Tasmanians face. If we grow the population without growing our housing before they arrive, ensure our health system can care for those who are already here, and provide a good education with enough experienced teachers and support staff, I think we all know who will feel the pain, and who will likely be further displaced and left behind.

In terms of the big projects, and in some of the smaller projects, I would like to see ones that create longer-term benefits. I know the Leader talked about some of the housing issues. However, these are things we need to focus on for the people we have already have here.

We need capital investments in schools. I will mention three schools in particular, in my electorate. Montello Primary School: we have had $7 million allocated to a school that is totally inaccessible, in parts. None of the windows open properly, and if they do, you risk slicing your finger off. The way the wind blows through the school, when you open doors on one side, they will slam on the other side, and children risk losing fingers. There are some classrooms that are totally inaccessible for people with mobility issues, including teachers. I know they had to remodel the classroom or move one of the more senior classes up to the higher level, which can be accessed from road level. They normally have little kids up the top and bigger kids down the bottom, but because a child that was then going into year three could not use the stairs, they now have a mix of little and big kids up the top and down the bottom.

This $7 million is not enough. There has been work done to develop a plan to do a significant amount of work in this school to try and make it on just two levels and include a lift and have some safe toilets put in, which would be great. However, to do that, the school was required to basically cut off essential things. Yes, they will have an outdoor area that young children who need to de-escalate or de-regulate or re-regulate, perhaps, could go out of the classroom into a grassed area. All they can have is some grass now, if they want to do this. Nothing else. They wanted to put in some nice play equipment that was tactile, that had some water, and had things that would help a child - considering this is an area with some pretty tough economic circumstances for a lot of these families. They can create an outdoor learning space, as I thought we supposed to with COVID-19, but they cannot afford to have any shade over it.

There is the old bit on the end - I have spoken about this 100 times before, so you are probably sick of hearing about it - but there is an old toilet block at the end of the school that is completely invisible to the rest of the school. There are three storeys of horrible, old concrete stairs down to it. That will not be part of the new school, but they cannot afford to knock it down because demolition of that puts them over the budget. They will just leave it there.

This school needs an extra $6 million, on top of the $7 million. I look at all these other schools around the place that have got millions more dollars. This has not had any works since, well, except for a little payslip under the VR funding since the 1960s.

Let us help these children whose families are quite disadvantaged by and large. Some of them think $5 million is a huge amount of money. They cannot even contemplate that much. There are also quite a few tradies whose kids go to school there and they say 'geez, you will not get much done with that'. They are right. I hope to see in the budget at least another $6 million for Montello Primary School to enable the school to provide a fit-for-purpose school that actually meets the needs of these kids. Surely, they deserve that.

Hellyer College. It would be the same as when I was there, except for the science labs. They are good. Some great areas have been done up, and the old part of the north-west support school that was there once, and they were part of the Hellyer College. However, so much of it is just like when I was there. That was a long time ago. They still have the green carpet on the floor and up the pillars. It is really handy if you want to bash your head on the pillar, Mr President. Just up against the carpet so you do not hurt yourself. However, there are so many areas there that are so non-contemporary when you are at high school.

Yes, we have had some money spent on that. I noticed an announcement in something we read or saw here the other day. That was a new toilet block. The classrooms have not been upgraded for years. Many, many years. There is an easy way to solve that is to build new classrooms over where the carpark is and transform the old tennis courts that are not used anymore to car parking, which makes it much more seamless, and you would not have to disrupt the school while you did it.

I know that Trudy Pierce, who is involved in these decisions, has been up there recently and visited. I am pretty sure she would have been well-informed. However, I was very honoured to be taken around by the school captains and they talked about the challenges, they talked about what they would like to see and I was there to listen to them. So, there are those sorts of things.

I have already mentioned the support for childcare. I think we do need to look at how we can perhaps participate in that.

The other thing I would like to talk about, particularly from the answer to a question I got yesterday, was the King Island Grassy port, when the Leader assured me it is an all-weather safe harbour port. How can that possibly be when the John Duigan cannot get in in rough weather? When I was over there on showday, it was due to come in on Tuesday, the weather was pretty rugged. They did not come. They had to come later in the week. At least they do come. However, that is not all-weather safe harbour if your main vessel cannot get in or out. Whilst you can get fishing vessels into that harbour, it is not an all-weather safe harbour.

We have an opportunity with the Group 6 Metals Mine to actually construct - not straight away - but in 2025 we can plan for it, get the engineering done, get a master plan done and we can look at how can we use the overburden they have got right there, and actually create another port. That does not mean you decommission the one that is there. That can still be used, but create a much deeper port that actually then provides that protection from the winds from the opposite direction. The south-west, these are pretty horrid over there at times.

Mr Valentine - It is kind of like a breakwater, you are talking about.

Ms FORREST - It is breakwater, but it also creates a port on the inside. There has been a lot of work done on it. King Island Council were keen to actually have some funding to actually do a more thorough study of this. Anyway, it seems like that will not be happening. However, I am sure Marcus Blackie, this new mayor, will be on the case, as I will continue to be.

These are just a few of the things we need to be focussing in on. Not just capital investment in school, but investment in our teaching staff.

On the subject of education, every year I go around the state when I meet and talk with teachers and students, they tell me how short-staffed they are and the enormous pressure many of our principles are under. We only have to see the Mercury a few days ago talking about the number of principals that are assaulted. It was just dreadful, the number thinking about leaving. I regularly meet with the principals in my area, as many as I can; there are a lot of them. They are having to undertake so much of the teaching load because there just are not the relief staff. Whilst we heard in the Public Accounts Committee about a list of - I think it was 1170-odd relief teachers but that figure was put forward some time ago. Many of those, as I am informed by the teaching staff and principals I have talked to, now have permanent work so they are no longer there. Some will only work in a particular school; some will only work on a particular day or days. It might work in some areas, but it is so ineffective for schools in most of my electorate, which is remote. The principals are having to do their own work and also do the work of a teacher because they cannot get relief.

Just going back to the personal safety threats that principals and potentially their families are also experiencing, I absolutely condemn such behaviour. No teacher or principal should be subjected to threats of violence or fear for their personal safety or the safety of their family members. It is fundamentally wrong. I know there are lots of people under pressure, but principals are under enormous pressure anyway. I absolutely condemn that sort of behaviour.

To return to the purpose of this debate - that was a little foray into the couple of things I just wanted to mention. There are many others I could have, but I thought no, stick to those couple. The matter before us is noting the Premier's address. One would have expected a plan for the future. On this point, it is disappointing and lacking in vision and any real plans for our future and the future of our state. In fact, some of the Government's most ardent supporters have made similar observations; it is not just me saying this. It is truly difficult to detect an overall plan for moving the state forward as one and meet the needs of the people we have here. As I said, the Premier's speech does not actually help with that. If anything, it confirms there is not one coordinated plan, more a collection of plans or ideas designed for various stakeholders cobbled together in one government.

In summary, there is a population ponzi plan on the back of the property lobby, a Marinus Link plan to assist with a few foreign-owned windfarms to transmit their products to the mainland markets, a new stadium for Macquarie Point, first home owners grants which certainly help recipients buy a house, but unquestionably lead to an increase in house prices, which makes it more difficult for others. Meanwhile, whatever dollars are available without attempting to increase revenue are thrown at the existing problems of health, housing, education and so on, knowing full well, but not admitting it to the Tasmanian public, that those problems will never be solved with the current settings.

We are always assured that the big projects will grow the economy and help put more money into government coffers so the Government can continue to expand needed services. However never, and I emphasise, never are we ever to see the rivers of gold flow into the government coffers under current settings. All we get are assertions that this will occur. Does trickle-down economics work or is it just a doctrine used to cloak self-interest?

Just in this past week the former secretary of federal treasury commented that the federal government needs an extra revenue of another 2 per cent of GDP, which is equivalent to $50 billion to fund the future.

Our problems here in Tasmania are similar. That is my big problem. Does anyone seriously believe our problems, particularly health and housing, that we know have worsened considerably over the past few years, will be solved with the current policies and policy settings? How are we to house the 20 000 more Tasmanians who will be working here? According to the Premier, when we cannot attract the workers that we need now due to a lack of housing and child care in many parts, if not all parts of the state, where are the extra 20 000 going to live?

How will the whole-of-government strategy actually address the digital divide as suggested, when so many in our regions do not have access to reliable and fast internet? Do the innovative solutions proposed by the Premier's speech assume people will have this access? All of the boasting about the relative strength of our economy at the beginning of the Premier's speech is not reflected in the lives of so many Tasmanians. Tasmanians cannot access timely health care, including elective surgery, and are struggling to pay their power bills and all other cost-of-living pressures they are facing, with the high interest rate pushing up the price of essential items.

The Premier's speech should have been about these very real issues that almost all Tasmanians are facing. If you cannot afford your current housing even when you are working, which is the case for many facing significant rent rises and interest rate rises, or you cannot even access safe and secure housing due to the severe shortage of housing, I believe all you will hear are hollow word.

If anyone did actually listen to or read the Premier's address they would have not heard about the future vision or a consolidated and coherent plan for the future, which is what I and most others wanted. Instead, we got a slag off against political opponents right from the opening comments, with a Pollyanna-ish presentation for the faithful. It should be about taking us into your confidence, telling us what is wrong, warts and all, and then providing a coherent plan to deliver what is needed. That is what the Premier's address failed to do.

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