UTAS and Tasmania’s future

Good morning and thank you everyone for joining us here today.

Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we gather, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

And can I also say thank you to the University for hosting us in this beautiful new space – just one small part of the enormous contribution you’ve made, and continue to make, to the growth and transformation of Hobart.

And I don’t just mean university buildings, as fantastic as they are.

Look down to Elizabeth Street. The uni move has so reinvigorated this part of town it’s now got its own name: Midtown.

Cafes, bars, restaurants – all servicing a vibrant student population and highly-skilled university workforce.

New businesses, new jobs, and a livelier city. It’s fantastic.

And it’s what I want to see more of right around Tasmania.

Because I want Tasmania to be the easiest place to do business, and the best place to grow up, work and retire.

Which is why, under my leadership, Labor stands for jobs.

Safe, secure, well-paying jobs.

It’s what Labor’s stood for, for more than 120 years, and it’s what I’ve been absolutely clear we’re going to stand for under my leadership as well.

You might have heard me say it once or twice already – but I mean it.

We want more Tasmanians in work – secure work.

We want to see incomes rising across the board.

We want businesses to be profitable—the more profitable the better—and we want better opportunities for Tasmania’s young people.

We want to shake off the challenges that have long held Tasmania back – poor education outcomes, low workforce participation, below average incomes.

Enabling the next generation to have opportunities ours didn’t.

To build secure, well-paid, rewarding careers and businesses right here in Tasmania.

And to contribute to the economic future our state deserves.

Which brings me to what I want to speak with you about today.

An issue I believe will cause significant damage to Tasmania’s economic future.

That has arisen because a desperate government called an early election, and was willing to do anything to cling to power.

Because the Premier, weakened and now governing in minority, is focused only on his political survival.

Putting his political self-interest ahead of Tasmania’s best interests.

Unable to lead his government – and instead being led by it.

Letting a noisy minority group dictate government policy.

(And no, I’m not talking about his coalition with the Lambies – though that’s a worry too.)

No, I’m talking about his government’s legislation to effectively freeze the university’s assets, and prevent any development on its vacant land in Sandy Bay.

This will have no effect on the university’s move into the city, which has been underway for 15 years and will soon be nearly two-thirds complete.

But it will prevent the construction of nearly 2,000 new houses, in the middle of an unprecedented period of housing unaffordability.

It will mean the university can’t fund its new $500 million STEM facility, at a time when young people are leaving for the mainland in numbers not seen since the nineties.

It’s a plan that will do serious damage to the finances and long-term viability of the university—our state’s only university—in an era where young people will need degrees in unprecedented numbers.

And it will irreparably harm Tasmania’s reputation as an investment destination, by pulling the rug out from under a development process the government has supported for the best part of a decade.

The Labor Party wants more housing.

We want the jobs that come with new construction – including apprenticeships for our young people.

We want world-class educational facilities, run by a strong university.

We want a thriving capital city.

We want our best and brightest to stay here in Tasmania, to contribute to our industries, our businesses, our construction industry and our science, technology and research sectors.

We want Tasmanians to be able to invest with certainty.

We want Tasmanians to have safe, secure, well-paid jobs, as the foundation of a strong economic future for Tasmania.

Which is why we’ll be standing strongly against the Liberals’ bill.

I know there will be opposition to this decision – just as there has been with some of the other decisions I’ve made so far.

I fully expect I’ll be getting quite a few letters this week.

But I also know Tasmania will not make the progress we need if our political leaders allow the state’s best interests to be constantly overridden by a vocal minority.

If we’re too cowardly to say what we think, or to be clear about what we stand for, then we let them win before they’ve even started.

If we’re too weak to make a tough decision, we’ll end up being led by those who want to hold our state back.

By people who are perfectly comfortable if nothing changes, because they’re already perfectly comfortable.

The Liberals might be ok with this – they’re the conservative party after all.

The Greens might be pleased by it – they’re conservationists above all, remember.

The Lambies? Well I’m not sure what they think, but I’m not sure they do either, to be honest.

But I do know Labor, when we’re at our best, has always been the party that stands for progress.

We’re the ones who bring about the big changes that leave us all better off in the long run.

The last Labor government built Basslink. They built the gas pipeline, the first windfarms, and the irrigation schemes.

They dragged the retail sector into the twenty first century, with seven-day trading.

Because it’s Labor who’s always stood for building a better future, even when it’s tough.

And that’s what we’ll do under my leadership, too.

I want Tasmania to be the easiest place to do business, and the best place to grow up, work and retire.

I want to build a stronger economy, driven by, and delivering, safe, secure, well-paid jobs.

And I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and allow this government to kill off one of the most exciting economic development opportunities this state has seen in decades.

Even if it was only a housing project—and it’s much more than that—it would be an important project for Tasmania.

Nearly 2,000 new homes, close to the city, serviced by existing transport routes, and close to public amenities.

A mix of apartments, medium density units and stand-alone housing.

Housing that would be ideal for teachers, nurses, engineers – all the workers we’re struggling to find enough of.

Opportunities for affordable housing to be included too, to provide more options for renters and first home buyers.

A step-change in housing supply in our city – when housing has never been further out of reach for Tasmanians.

When rents are up more than $200 a week compared to 2014, and when home ownership feels impossible for a whole generation.

When homelessness is now an accepted part of our cities and towns – even though it never used to be.

When the government’s signature housing policy—establishing Homes Tasmania—has been a complete failure.

When in six years, they’ve built just six homes on the thousand “fast-tracked” blocks the Parliament has rezoned.

When their signature planning policy—a “cheaper, faster, fairer, simpler” single statewide planning scheme—still hasn’t been implemented more than a decade after it was promised.

I refuse to accept we can’t do better.

But we have to acknowledge the only serious answer to Tasmania’s housing challenge is to build more homes, and to build them faster.

To welcome new development.

Approve new projects.

Embrace higher density.

Build apartment blocks.

And stop saying no.

Yet that’s exactly what the Liberals plan to do.

That’s what the Greens and Kristie Johnston plan to support.

They plan to block the biggest single housing project in Tasmania.

They want to see unused land above Churchill Avenue, and buildings that have long been vacated, remain vacant indefinitely.

Make no mistake: saying no to this development means saying no to addressing the housing crisis.

Keeping Tasmania stuck in the past means leaving Tasmania stuck with all its longstanding problems.

It means accepting things can’t ever be better – when they most definitely can.

And it means saying no to thousands safe, secure, well-paid jobs.

When right now—especially right now—we need to be supporting jobs in our building and construction sector.

Not only because our building sector, like many other industries, is starting to feel the effects of Tasmania’s economic slowdown.

And not just because we need to keep training more skilled tradespeople, more engineers and more architects to deliver the housing and other projects our state needs.

But because we need to be providing our young people with as many opportunities as possible.

This project alone will create hundreds of apprenticeships, at a time when young Tasmanians are currently leaving the state in record numbers.

A planeload every four days – more than any time since the nineties.

A brain drain that will hold our state back.

And another area in which I refuse to accept we can’t do better.

Of course we can do better.

But we need to give our young people a reason to stay in Tasmania.

They need to see a future for themselves here.

A secure job, with good pay, and good career prospects.

A capital city that’s alive, not always afraid to change.

Real hope of home ownership.

That’s what will keep our young people here.

That’s what this project offers.

And that’s why we’re backing it.

But those aren’t the only reasons.

The Liberals’ plan to freeze the university’s biggest asset—its vacant, unused land above Churchill Avenue—will leave the uni unable to fund its $500 million STEM facility.

A huge project in itself, that will create hundreds of secure, well-paid jobs in construction.

But more importantly, an investment that will be an economic driver for our state for decades.

Look at what our world-leading Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies contributes to Tasmania.

That’s what this new STEM facility will deliver for our state too.

It’ll take our STEM facilities from some of the oldest in the country, to among the best.

There are plans for industry co-location, which will see the commercialisation of research like never before.

Creating hundreds of exciting new career options for Tasmanians.

It’ll give our best and brightest a reason to stay in Tasmania – not because they have to, but because they want to.

Which right now – they don’t.

Did you know the University of Melbourne and Monash University currently fly our leading STEM students to Melbourne, all expenses paid, and provide them tours of their top STEM facilities?

Why is the government just letting this happen?

Worse, why do they have a policy that will make it impossible to resolve?

Why are they stripping the university of the means to invest in world-leading STEM facilities?

Why do they think the Federal Government will pay for it, with taxpayer money, when the state government could just get out of the way?

Can you think of anything more short-sighted, more economically irresponsible, than blocking a generational investment in science, technology, engineering and maths?

Can you believe that in 2024, when technology will define our economic fortunes more than anything else this century, the Liberals have a policy that will prevent the university from investing half a billion dollars in STEM?

They’re putting their political self-interest above Tasmania’s interest.

Survival of their minority government ahead of the state’s future.

It’s a complete failure of leadership from the Premier.

And it’s something, under my leadership, Labor will play no part in.

Because this isn’t just a housing issue, as important as that is.

It’s not just about jobs, opportunity and ending the brain drain.

It’s not just about STEM and our economic future.

It’s also about the terrible signal the Liberals’ policy sends to anyone planning to invest in Tasmania.

This development has been underway for the best part of a decade, and the city move is already nearly two-thirds complete.

A business case was approved by Infrastructure Australia way back in 2017.

Eric Abetz said he’d been “privately advocating” for the project to ministers for several years, and said the Liberals would “actively seek funding in an effort to get the project off the ground”.

In 2018, the State Government entered an MOU for the Hobart City Deal, which included an expansion of Antarctic Science facilities and the STEM proposal.

Will Hodgman said the developments would maximise job opportunities for Tasmanians.

The City Deal was signed in 2019.

Helen Burnett, now a Greens MP, ran for Hobart City Council in 2022 pledging to support the city move.

Jeremy Rockliff said “the decision to relocate the southern UTAS campus… is a matter for the University of Tasmania.”

Now, after all these years, after his government has approved the university’s borrowings, after the university has expended the bulk of those loans, he wants to strip them of their ability to repay those borrowings and invest in the new facilities they need.

To complete the development his government once supported.

Effectively freezing their assets with an Act of Parliament.

I started my career in Treasury, and I know this bill will send a chill down the spine of every investor in Tasmania.

Because if the Premier’s willing to do this to the university—Tasmania’s only university—who can have confidence they won’t have the rug pulled out from underneath them, too?

Who will feel confident the government will have their back, even if a vocal minority decides to train their guns on their industry?

How will he handle local opposition to windfarms, or transmission infrastructure?

Will he put local politics ahead of Tasmania’s interests?

Will he legislate them away too?

How will the Premier respond to the Lambies’ opposition to salmon, forestry, and who knows what else?

Will he put the survival of his government ahead of the survival of Tasmania’s regional towns?

And what about the next tourism project the Greens decide they don’t like?

Will he let his local members tell him what to do with that project as well?

Because that’s the issue with sovereign risk.

One you open the door to decisions like this, it’s impossible for anyone to be sure where it ends.

But I’ll tell you where I think it should end.

With this bill being resoundingly rejected.

Because while I’m originally from the west coast, I also lived in Hobart in the nineties and early 2000s.

I remember the “Slowbart” jibes.

I remember my friends moving to the mainland to pursue opportunities they couldn’t get here.

I remember what Jim Bacon’s government did to turn this state around.

And I don’t want us to go back to where we once were.

I also know how access to a good education can change someone’s life.

You probably don’t know this, but school wasn’t easy for me when I was little.

But because of the extra help I got, from my family and from my school, I was able to overcome those challenges and go to have the fulfilling, diverse career I’ve had so far.

So I don’t want any young Tasmanian to miss out on a great education, or to feel like they have to go to the mainland to have an exciting career.

I want Tasmania to be the easiest place to do business, and the best place to grow up, work and retire.

I want to see 2,000 new homes built.

I want thousands of safe, secure, well-paying jobs for Tasmanians, and hundreds of apprenticeships for our young people.

I want a $500 million, world-leading STEM facility.

I want to stop mainland unis poaching our top students – by making sure they actually want to stay here in the first place.

I want a facility that drives research and innovation across industry for the next 50 years.

I want a vibrant capital city, where people can invest with confidence.

And above all, I want a government that isn’t afraid to make the tough decisions.

That will put its neck on the line for the sake of our state.

And which that has the strength of leadership to always put Tasmania’s interests ahead of its political self-interest.

Thank you.