Cassy O'Connor | Greens Human Services spokesperson
Premier Hodgman acknowledged concerns raised by the community sector about the lack of funds to Tasmanians in need as "valid questions", but when questioned on why his GST windfall wasn't invested in this area the Premier told Estimates he wouldn't be "blowing it on recurrent services".
It is simply sad that the Premier is telling low income Tasmanians and the community sector which supports them that his Government won't be wasting its extra money on them.
Tasmania receives a proportionally higher allocation of GST revenue because of our high level of social need and poor health outcomes compared with the rest of the nation. It's abundantly clear that this means very little across the Cabinet table, where it was decided roads and bridges are a higher priority than the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged Tasmanians.
Re-announcing already allocated money doesn't help the people in our community who don't have stable housing, can't pay their power bills or afford enough healthy food.
Ultimately, every government Budget is about priorities and the Greens will continue to maintain that this Budget has its priorities all wrong