00:00With a state election coming up, I'm Sean Ford and I'm having a chat with Labor leader Dean Winter,
00:04who wants to become Tasmania's new Premier. Thanks for joining us, Steve.
00:08Thanks for having me, Sean.
00:09Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. It's important, we think, to have the leaders on
00:12and give people a bit of an idea about what they're up to.
00:16Now, I think it would be fair to say, Dean Winter, that most Tasmanians wouldn't want another early election.
00:24Did you expect that to be the outcome when you moved a no-confidence motion in Premier Jeremy Rockleaf?
00:29When you take a serious decision like the one we did, you think about what all of the different outcomes could be.
00:37A successful no-confidence motion requires the crossbenchers that had previously signed confidence supply agreements with the Premier to lose confidence in him.
00:45And we put forward three reasons.
00:48The budget, the complete catastrophe, that is, the Tasmanian budget being the first one.
00:53The second one being the privatisation agenda of the Premier.
00:56And the third one being the stuff up with the spirits.
00:58And ultimately, it's those crossbenchers that lost confidence.
01:01And then Jeremy made that decision that I don't think people thought he would do,
01:05in that he would take us to an election rather than resigning as Premier and allowing a different Liberal Party member to be the Premier.
01:12That's the decision he took, and that's the situation we're now in.
01:15We've now got to fight to offer Tasmanians a fresh start and change and hope for the future.
01:20So, just to be clear, this was an exercise to get rid of Rockliffe rather than to get rid of the government?
01:27This was an exercise to create change and to do our job.
01:32As an opposition, we need to hold the government and the Premier accountable for his decisions.
01:37And it is his decisions that have taken Tasmania towards $13 billion worth of net debt and not be honest about the situation.
01:43The Liberals talk about their pathway to surplus, which I don't think anybody's actually identified.
01:48It's a fiction, right?
01:49But where's yours?
01:50I mean, when will we see a surplus under a Labor government if you win this election or lead after this election?
01:56And we're being really sick about this, Sean.
01:58We've said in the medium term, we need to get to a cash surplus or a cash balance.
02:04What that means is at the moment, so this last financial year that's just gone, the forecast is sort of the estimate of what happened is around $1.7 billion in cash deficit.
02:14That means you're adding $1.7 billion to the debt and cash deficits going forward.
02:19So, our aim and what we need to do here is to get back to cash balance in the medium term.
02:24We're not going to be able to do it in the short term, though, Sean.
02:27The size and scale of this problem is enormous.
02:30And if you try to get to a cash balance in the short term, you would cause enormous harm.
02:36So, we've got to have a plan to get in the medium term back to cash balance and reduce the size of the debt from what's forecast down.
02:44That is the challenge that we need to take together, though.
02:47We need to do it from government in partnership with the public sector, with business and the community sector.
02:53Now, Labor's lost Rebecca White, Labor's lost Michelle O'Byrne, two very experienced and talented MPs, I think it's fair to say.
03:01Is there enough talent left among the existing MPs and among the other candidates to form a competent ministry, if it comes to that?
03:09There is.
03:10And, I mean, especially here in Braddon, you know, we put forward some really, really strong candidates.
03:15You know, Cheryl Fuller, very well respected mayor and got a lot of experience.
03:25You know, people like Kelly Hooch Hunt, who've been so, so in touch with Tasmanians, working people with recreational fishers.
03:35We've been focusing on getting good candidates for a while now, and those sort of candidates add a lot to Tasmanian Labor.
03:42But we've got teachers, nurses in our team.
03:46You know, we've got the experience now.
03:48I think Josh Williams, our shadow treasurer, has done an outstanding job of holding the Liberals to account.
03:53I'm backing every day against Guy Barnett when it comes to our budget.
03:55So, yeah, we're united, we've got a talented team, looking to add more talent through this election.
04:04Very confident going forward.
04:06Okay.
04:06What's your seat target in Braddon?
04:08Look, I think we're looking to increase the size of our team.
04:14It's no secret that we want to win three seats here in Braddon.
04:18That's where we're looking for.
04:19We've got a very, very talented team of people.
04:23And the message for Braddon is the same one that I gave around salmon.
04:29You know, it was me that went to Canberra and fought, along with Anne Urquhart, to save our salmon industry on the West Coast.
04:35People understand now that Tasmanian Labor is firmly backing our salmon industry.
04:38We stand for safe, secure, well-paid jobs.
04:41We do support native forestry.
04:42We do support mining.
04:44We do support aquaculture and renewable energy.
04:47And I think in the past we haven't been clear enough about what we do support.
04:50That's why I've been so clear that we support those industries and those working people.
