The Tasmanian Greens have moved a censure motion against Labor leader Dean Winter, accusing him of walking away from scrutiny of the Macquarie Point stadium project.
In parliament on Thursday, Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said Winter had abandoned a key election commitment by shifting Labor’s position to support the controversial project.
“He is planning on working in coalition with the premier, he’s joined at the hip, to dishonour his promise to Tasmanians, to scrutinise the stadium and to hold the government to account,” she said.
“This is absolutely urgent today because it’s very clear that Dean Winter has broken numbers of promises.”
Winter dismissed the motion as “ridiculous” and “a waste of the parliament’s time” during a fiery response in which he attacked the Greens for focusing on him rather than the government.
“We are here to scrutinise the government of Tasmania and I’ve been doing that every single day in this House,” Winter said.
“The leader of the Greens comes to this house during a cost of living crisis, during a health crisis, during a housing crisis that they claim to care about, and arrives here and wants to scrutinise the leader of the opposition?”
Winter defended Labor’s support for an AFL team, saying it is an investment in Tasmania’s future rather than a policy backflip.
“I believe in an AFL team for Tasmania because I know what it means to young people. I want young people to stay in this state,” he said.
“I want young people to live in this state. I them to have a future. I want them to have an AFL team that they can aspire to.”
Winter then laid into the Greens, accusing them of political opportunism and avoiding real issues facing Tasmanians.
“It was Labor that did the work to bring down the deputy premier of Tasmania. Where were the Greens? Where were they on the issue? They turned up right at the end,” Winter said.
“I’m here every day scrutinising the premier of this state. I’m disgusted with the way this state’s being run.”
“This is why minority parliaments don’t work. Because of minor parties like the Greens trying to play politics with this place.”
“This is a serious place that should be filled with serious politicians and the leader of the Greens is not serious.”
Leader of government business Eric Abetz appeared to take some pleasure in the conflict between the opposition parties.
“Lovetiffs are always untidy and unseemly and although it is, I must say, somewhat delicious to observe and sit back and see what’s going on between the Labor Party and the Greens,” Abetz said.
“Can I also say in relation to the urgency of this matter, I’m disappointed that the leader of the Greens only found four reasons to censure the leader of the opposition and has wasted so much paper and there’s also a blank page on the back.”
“This is a waste of the Parliament’s time.”
