A no-confidence motion in Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff is threatening his political future as leader of the minority Liberal government. Parliament is debating the motion that was tabled by Labor Leader Dean Winter during his budget reply speech yesterday citing growing debt and the plan to cut jobs and state assets.
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TVTranscript
00:00There are three key reasons that Labor says it no longer has any confidence in Premier
00:07Jeremy Rockcliffe's ability to govern the state.
00:10So the first reason is the state of the finances in Tasmania.
00:14The government last week unveiled its latest budget and it showed that debt over the next
00:20four years will almost double to $10.8 billion and by that stage the amount of interest that
00:27Tasmanians will have to pay each year will be in the order of $650 million.
00:34The budget books showed there was no surpluses over the next four years, only deficits.
00:40The government says it's on a sensible path towards surpluses by the end of the decade
00:46but Labor says that's not good enough.
00:48Indeed they say this is the worst budget in Tasmania's history.
00:52The second reason that Labor is pushing on with this motion of no confidence is that
00:57the government plans to try and bring down some of that debt by selling off publicly owned
01:03companies in Tasmania.
01:05Things like it may well go down this track with things like the ports or Tasnetworks, the cables
01:13and wires, those kind of things and the bus service as well.
01:16Labor says it's opposed to the prospect of privatisation.
01:21And the third reason that Labor has put forward relates to the government's handling of major
01:26projects and it points specifically to the debacle surrounding the replacement of the spirit
01:34of Tasmania ferries that operate on Bass Strait.
01:38Those new ferries are over time long overdue and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.
01:45So Labor says those three things are reason enough to kick out the Liberal leader.
01:51If I just sit back and allow this chaos and dysfunction to continue, I'm just as complicit
01:56as the Premier and that goes for the House.
02:00We cannot in good conscience support this Premier.
02:02I would never forgive myself if I was complicit in the debt and deficits being built up.
02:08The Premier is sending Tasmania broke and he's not even prepared to admit that he's got
02:12a problem.
02:13A hand on heart can say to you that I have fought more for vulnerable people in this place
02:22than the Labor Party could ever dream of.
02:25And particularly the person that resumes his seat, the Leader of the Opposition, who has
02:33demonstrated in the last 24 hours that you are not ready to govern, that you are a weak leader,
02:43that you are prepared to jeopardise Tasmania's future and the stability of this parliament
02:49that you have by your reckless behaviour today and your weak leadership decided that you are
02:57far more important than Tasmanians.
03:02So Jarno, what are the chances that this motion of no confidence will succeed?
03:09It's looking increasingly likely.
03:10The fact that Labor has decided to actually move this motion today shows that they think
03:14they have enough support and indeed during debate today the Premier has even reflected
03:20on his own chances of remaining as Premier and at one point said it might not end well
03:25for me today so he seems to think he may not be Premier by the end of the day.
03:30Now all of this came about earlier today after the Greens confirmed that they would support
03:36this motion of no confidence.
03:38Dean Winter, the Labor leader, had flagged it yesterday, he'd tabled the motion but said
03:42he needed enough support on the floor to reach the point of moving the motion.
03:47Yesterday he got three votes confirmed from the three of the six crossbenchers.
03:54That meant he had 13 because Labor has 10 itself and then today with the Greens support that
03:59reached the critical number of 18 so very likely once this goes to a vote at some point later
04:04today and that could take potentially many hours until it goes to a vote, it's very likely
04:10that it will succeed.
04:12And what happens then if the motion of no confidence is successful?
04:15Could there be an early election?
04:17There could well be an early election and that's something that the Premier has threatened.
04:24He says that Labor wants to take the state to an election just 15 months after everyone
04:29went to the ballot boxes back in March last year.
04:34Now ordinarily the convention is that if the subject of a motion of no confidence, if that
04:40motion of no confidence is successful in that person, they would ordinarily by convention
04:45resign from their position and that would mean the Liberals would then elect a new leader
04:50and that new leader would test supply and confidence on the floor of Parliament, would try and have
04:54some agreements in place with some of the crossbenchers.
04:58Whether or not that happens we just don't know but it would seem based on some of the statements
05:03from the Premier that his chosen path would be to go to the Governor and seek an early election.
05:09Now one interesting quirk is that the Governor isn't actually in Tasmania at the moment.
05:13There is a Lieutenant Governor who is filling in so it would be up to that Lieutenant Governor
05:18to decide whether or not Tasmanians go to the polls if that was the course that Jeremy
05:22Rockliffe chose to take.
05:23The Governor is a Lieutenant Governor of the National Park Laird
05:25You