00:00There are three key reasons that Labor says it no longer has any confidence in Premier
00:07Jeremy Rockcliffe's ability to govern the state.
00:10So the first reason is the state of the finances in Tasmania.
00:14The government last week unveiled its latest budget and it showed that debt over the next
00:20four years will almost double to $10.8 billion and by that stage the amount of interest that
00:27Tasmanians will have to pay each year will be in the order of $650 million.
00:34The budget books showed there was no surpluses over the next four years, only deficits.
00:40The government says it's on a sensible path towards surpluses by the end of the decade
00:46but Labor says that's not good enough.
00:48Indeed they say this is the worst budget in Tasmania's history.
00:52The second reason that Labor is pushing on with this motion of no confidence is that
00:57the government plans to try and bring down some of that debt by selling off publicly owned
01:03companies in Tasmania.
01:05Things like it may well go down this track with things like the ports or Tasnetworks, the cables
01:13and wires, those kind of things and the bus service as well.
01:16Labor says it's opposed to the prospect of privatisation.
01:21And the third reason that Labor has put forward relates to the government's handling of major
01:26projects and it points specifically to the debacle surrounding the replacement of the spirit
01:34of Tasmania ferries that operate on Bass Strait.
01:38Those new ferries are over time long overdue and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.
01:45So Labor says those three things are reason enough to kick out the Liberal leader.
01:51If I just sit back and allow this chaos and dysfunction to continue, I'm just as complicit
01:56as the Premier and that goes for the House.
02:00We cannot in good conscience support this Premier.
02:02I would never forgive myself if I was complicit in the debt and deficits being built up.
02:08The Premier is sending Tasmania broke and he's not even prepared to admit that he's got
02:12a problem.
02:13A hand on heart can say to you that I have fought more for vulnerable people in this place
02:22than the Labor Party could ever dream of.
02:25And particularly the person that resumes his seat, the Leader of the Opposition, who has
02:33demonstrated in the last 24 hours that you are not ready to govern, that you are a weak leader,
02:43that you are prepared to jeopardise Tasmania's future and the stability of this parliament
02:49that you have by your reckless behaviour today and your weak leadership decided that you are
02:57far more important than Tasmanians.
03:02So Jarno, what are the chances that this motion of no confidence will succeed?
03:09It's looking increasingly likely.
03:10The fact that Labor has decided to actually move this motion today shows that they think
03:14they have enough support and indeed during debate today the Premier has even reflected
03:20on his own chances of remaining as Premier and at one point said it might not end well
03:25for me today so he seems to think he may not be Premier by the end of the day.
03:30Now all of this came about earlier today after the Greens confirmed that they would support
03:36this motion of no confidence.
03:38Dean Winter, the Labor leader, had flagged it yesterday, he'd tabled the motion but said
03:42he needed enough support on the floor to reach the point of moving the motion.
03:47Yesterday he got three votes confirmed from the three of the six crossbenchers.
03:54That meant he had 13 because Labor has 10 itself and then today with the Greens support that
03:59reached the critical number of 18 so very likely once this goes to a vote at some point later
04:04today and that could take potentially many hours until it goes to a vote, it's very likely
04:10that it will succeed.
04:12And what happens then if the motion of no confidence is successful?
04:15Could there be an early election?
04:17There could well be an early election and that's something that the Premier has threatened.
04:24He says that Labor wants to take the state to an election just 15 months after everyone
04:29went to the ballot boxes back in March last year.
04:34Now ordinarily the convention is that if the subject of a motion of no confidence, if that
04:40motion of no confidence is successful in that person, they would ordinarily by convention
04:45resign from their position and that would mean the Liberals would then elect a new leader
04:50and that new leader would test supply and confidence on the floor of Parliament, would try and have
04:54some agreements in place with some of the crossbenchers.
04:58Whether or not that happens we just don't know but it would seem based on some of the statements
05:03from the Premier that his chosen path would be to go to the Governor and seek an early election.
05:09Now one interesting quirk is that the Governor isn't actually in Tasmania at the moment.
05:13There is a Lieutenant Governor who is filling in so it would be up to that Lieutenant Governor
05:18to decide whether or not Tasmanians go to the polls if that was the course that Jeremy
05:22Rockliffe chose to take.
05:23The Governor is a Lieutenant Governor of the National Park Laird
05:25You
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