Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens’ Leader
Neither the Premier nor the Treasurer today could provide Parliament with any justification for flogging Tasmania’s iconic Treasury Building to private developers.
Nor did either bother trying to pretend they have a mandate for this unjustified privatization of a treasured public asset. They have absolutely no mandate.
It’s clear, having led Tasmanians to believe last November that the Treasury Building would not be sold, Peter Gutwein actually couldn’t wait to get his hands on it and the money to be made out of its sale to commercial interests.
This is a cash grab by the Liberals, pure and simple. They could not give less of a toss about the public interest and the fact that the Treasury Building and Franklin Square offices are not theirs to sell.
This is a sneaky, dishonest and self-serving move to enable the effective theft of a public treasure from its true owners.
Will Hodgman and Peter Gutwein are following a familiar pattern, making an unjustified and unjustifiable decision three years out from an election in the hope Tasmanians will have forgotten by the time the next election rolls around.
If they have their way, by then this c.1824 heritage treasure will no longer belong to the people of Tasmania.