Tasmania Premier Jeremy Rockliff facing a no-confidence motion

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockcliff is facing a no-confidence vote which could send the state to the polls earlier than expected.

Transcript

00:00Things have been politically as stable as they can be for a party governing four seats

00:07short of a majority, but that period of stability is well and truly over now.

00:13Labor leader, Dean Winter, he'd been trying to get to no voters over the last 15 months

00:18and rebuild Labor's brand, holding off on moving a no-confidence motion in the government.

00:23But yesterday, that all changed.

00:25In his budget reply speech to state parliament, he said the state budget, which has debt forecast

00:31to balloon out to $10.8 billion in four years' time, is the worst budget in Tasmania's history,

00:38and he said he'd table a no-confidence motion.

00:40That raises the budget as one of the key triggers for that, also the handling of the Spirit of

00:45Tasmania vessel replacement project and plans to privatise state assets.

00:50Now, he put the ball in the court of the crossbenches and said he'd move it as soon as he knew he

00:55had the votes.

00:56Now, Labor has 10 MPs in state parliament.

01:00It needs 18 votes for this to pass, so eight crossbenches have to be on board.

01:05And at the moment, the wait is on to see.

01:07We've got 13 who will support it.

01:09And then there's a meeting this morning with the Greens to decide whether those remaining

01:13five votes are also in line.

01:15So, is the move likely to succeed?

01:17Yeah, that's a really interesting question, and one we'll have an answer to very soon,

01:22hopefully.

01:23The Greens are meeting at the moment.

01:24There's a party room meeting ongoing.

01:27They've got the five votes that will mean that this can succeed if they throw their numbers

01:31behind it.

01:32So, a big meeting.

01:34They've been inclined to support no-confidence motions previously and have moved some of their

01:39own in Premier Jeremy Rockliffe.

01:41But we'll wait and see what they do.

01:43The stakes are pretty high this time, given Jeremy Rockliffe has said he'll go to an election

01:48if this motion succeeds.

01:50And then the question is, if the Greens do support it, when does Labor leader Dean Winter

01:54move the motion?

01:56It could be as soon as this morning, before question time, or it could be later today.

02:01Adam, will the government ultimately get its way?

02:03There's a lot of things.

02:05If their way is to succeed, it'll all rest in the Greens' court, I suppose.

02:10If the Greens do decide that they're going to support this motion and bring it down, bring

02:15down Premier Jeremy Rockliffe's leadership, then he doesn't get his way.

02:19He's got no choice but to resign and tell the Governor that the Parliament no longer has

02:24confidence in him.

02:25And then it's up to the Governor and other Liberal ministers as to what happens next.

02:31The question could be, especially if Jeremy Rockliffe goes to the Governor and says, I'd

02:36like to have an early election, you know, just 15 months after the last one, then the Governor

02:41could quite easily turn around and ask other Liberal ministers whether they have the numbers

02:46with the crossbench to be able to continue to govern, or perhaps whether the Labor opposition

02:50could govern with just 10 seats in an extremely minority government.

02:54So there's a lot of things yet to play out, and it's a really big day in Tasmanian Parliament.

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