Peter Gutwein,Treasurer
Labor’s lacklustre efforts to respond to the budget has proven once again that they are a lazy, fence-sitting, policy-free opposition.
In the last month in Parliament, the Hodgman majority Liberal Government has handed down a budget in surplus across the forward estimates and which delivers record funding for infrastructure, health and education. In contrast, Labor has completely failed the test.
Rebecca White refused to deliver an alternative budget yet again, leaving Labor unable to land a blow in Budget Estimates because they have no alternative and in fact have accepted the settings in our Budget.
Despite constantly attacking the Government over the challenges in the health system, Labor’s budget reply did not propose a single dollar more for hospitals.
Despite their complaints about our infrastructure spending, they didn’t propose changing a single project.
Tasmanians are still none the wiser about what Labor’s policy platform is, and how they would pay for it. What they do know is that despite Labor’s constant complaints, they have no alternative plan and they continue to sit on the fence and play both sides of the street on the hard issues.
The only thing Labor has excelled at in Parliament this year is voting with the Greens. Rebecca White’s Labor is on track to break their own record set last year, with Labor voting with the Greens a whopping 89 per cent of the time.
LABOR’S BUDGET PERFORMANCE BY THE NUMBERS:
- Number of changes Labor proposed to our infrastructure plan in their budget reply – 0
- Number of changes Labor proposed to our budget strategy – 0
- Additional dollars Labor proposed for hospitals in their budget reply – $0
- Additional dollars for housing in Labor’s budget reply – $0
- Additional cost to the economy from policies outlined in Labor’s budget reply – $790 million
- Savings measures proposed by Labor to pay for their policies – 0
- Net Debt if Labor’s policies were adopted – $1.9 billion
- Percentage of times Labor have voted with the Greens in 2019 – 89% (up from 81% in 2018)
