Tasmanian opposition plans to crack down on pork barrelling if elected to government

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Tasmanian opposition has announced plans to crack down on pork barrelling if it gets into government. It comes just days after the state budget was handed down, containing 480 election promises.

Transcript

00:00Days after the state budget was handed down, revealing mounting levels of debt, Labor is

00:08focused on the budget's funding of election promises.

00:11Today I'm announcing that Tasmanian Labor will move to ban pork barrelling.

00:15If elected into government, the party says it will legislate to ensure that every election

00:20promise goes through an independent process to assess them on their merits.

00:25But this is Tasmanian taxpayer money and we need to make sure that we're allocating it

00:28to the best possible purpose and that's not what's been happening.

00:32Out spruiking a pothole blitz in the wake of Tasmania's recent storms, the government's

00:38been quick to challenge Labor's own election promises.

00:41They had four billion dollars of expenditure.

00:45For them to say and talk about pork barrelling right now is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

00:51Over the past three elections, the Liberal Party has faced scrutiny over its funding

00:56promises, including through a report by Tasmania's Integrity Commission, which raised questions

01:02over tens of millions of dollars given out by the party in small community grants during

01:07the 2018 election.

01:09The Premier says listening to the community is the government's job.

01:12I'm not going to handball a member of parliament's responsibility, an elected representative,

01:18to bureaucrats to make those decisions.

01:21The Greens support the proposal to increase scrutiny, not just during election campaigns.

01:27But they say there's no need to wait for an election.

01:30We know what the problem is, it's about what is the solution, I'm sure the solution can

01:34be found and there's no reason to wait to get those solutions into place.

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