Tasmania’s Greens are ready and waiting as the countdown to the March 23rd state election begins.
Leader Rosalie Woodruff says her party is glad Premier Jeremy Rockliff has stopped “spinning his wheels” and “finally made his mind up”, saying there has been “a lot of time wasting” in recent months.
Appearing on the Afternoon Briefing on Wednesday, Woodruff said that despite claims parliament had been made unworkable, the Greens found it to be a “very productive place” in the last six months.
“We negotiated some whistleblower reforming legislation and we got up an ambulance ramping inquiry. That was incredibly important in bringing to light a whole range of issues in the health system,” she said.
“There have been really important things that have been achieved … we’ll be looking to have more influence over in the next term of parliament.”
But when it came to Hobart’s proposed Macquarie Point stadium, Woodruff echoed a similar statement made by Labor Leader Rebecca White and said it was a bad deal for the state.
“The Greens are aligned with the majority of Tasmanians that don’t support that stadium,” she said.
“They want the money to be invested into hospital and housing infrastructure and we are also in line with the majority of Tasmanians who want an AFL licence. We deserve an AFL licence in Tasmania.”
Woodruff believes the deal could be renegotiated with the AFL to exclude the stadium while retaining the 19th team licence.
“We know that there are two excellent stadiums already in Tasmania that with refurbishment, which we support, would be successful places to play AFL games and the York stadium in the north of the state has been used for AFL games many, many times,” she said.
“We don’t accept there is no pathway forward here for Tasmania. We would be negotiating and saying ‘we are a tiny state, we can’t afford to spend $1 billion plus on a stadium’ when we’re in housing crisis … The stadium just doesn’t make the cut.”
Woodruff said her party’s focus now lies on winning statewide representation and having the balance of power in the next term of government.
“The Greens will be looking to take the next government, pushing them much further on the things that we’re are campaigning around, that’s real action on climate, housing rental reforms, health and cost of living and protecting the environment,” she said.
