Cassy O'Connor MP | Greens Leader
Not surprisingly, the Hodgman Government has delivered itself an A+ report card that seriously overstates its achievements and fails to mention deep cuts to health and education, the sacking of 1200 public servants in this term of government as well as the apparent disregard for low income Tasmanians demonstrated in its first two Budgets.
I note that the recent passage of legislation to increase politicians' pay is not among the Liberals' stated achievements. Nor is the Liberals' broken promise not to subsidise Forestry Tasmania, or their broken promise not privatize public assets made before the last State Election and their decision in government to flog off Forestry Tasmania's plantation assets.
While staff employed in the government's PR spin machine are earning their keep for the Liberals, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, thousands of Tasmanians have lost their jobs on this government's watch.
Rather than devoting taxpayer dollars and human resources to glossy spin, Liberal Ministers should get out more and hear what real Tasmanians, languishing on soaring public housing and elective surgery waiting lists, are saying about them.
It's nowhere near as pretty as the glossy, self-congratulatory document put out by the Liberals today.
Mr Hodgman might give himself an A+, but he'd get an F for fail if he asked the thousands of Tasmanians who his government has condemned to longer elective surgery and public housing waiting lists, not to mention the hundreds of teachers and nurses the Premier and his Ministers have sacked.