Michael Ferguson will be on Webjet this morning scrambling to get back to Tasmania after seeing his Liberal colleagues bungle planning policy in his absence.
Jeremy Rockliff was so underprepared to make his planning “announcement” yesterday he was clumsily reading off his speaking notes on WIN News.
And today the same backbencher who signed the death warrant for the Liberals’ Local Government reform now wants planning removed from councils altogether, which her own leader ruled out yesterday.
The Liberals are in chaos because they’re a weak, divided minority Government. They’re scrambling over each other to try to get a headline.
No wonder Mayors of every political persuasion are lining up to smash the Liberals over their handling of Local Government and Planning.
Under the Liberals 15,561 lots of residential zoned land are sitting vacant across the state and just last week ABS data revealed the number of new houses starting to be built in Tasmania was at a five-and-a-half year low.
Because of these failures Labor welcomes a proper conversation over planning in Tasmania.
Labor is continuing to consult with the key stakeholders – such as councils – on how planning can be strengthened in this state.
But after 10 years of failing to deliver their promise of a single state-wide planning scheme, and now a rushed new policy that won’t even come to Parliament for another 12 months, there’s almost no one left who believes Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals will ever deliver real improvements to the planning system.
Luke Edmunds MLC
Shadow Minister for Local Government and Planning
