Release grant details and refocus on issues voters care about
Keeping hardship grants secret just creates unnecessary distraction, writes Brad Stansfield
TO use a contemporary COVID-19 meme, “nature is healing”, as for good or for bad politics as normal is returning in Tasmania.
The past month of state politics has displayed all sides falling back into their bad habits and political bubbles, completely out of touch with the expectations of the vast majority of Tasmanians.
No doubt, Labor and the Greens felt they were on to a winner with their pursuit of Housing and Children’s Minister Roger Jaensch over an ever-increasing number of problems on his watch, to the point that not one, not two, but three no-confidence motions were moved against him when Parliament last sat. Plus an attempted referral to the Privileges Committee to boot. Don’t get me wrong, noconfidence motions are a very useful opposition tool through which to help create a sense of drama, crisis and incompetence around a minister, and Minister Jaensch has certainly been wounded.
Nor has he helped himself with his mishandling of his “misspeaking” in Parliament, and the slow response around the Brahminy issue.
One of the number one rules of politics, however, is salience. That is, to what extent does the issue you are talking about matter to the voters? Because if it doesn’t, you are just whistling Dixie.
When it comes to matters of ministerial honesty and accountability, in the absence of a smoking bazooka the brute reality is that these types of issues tend to pass people by even at the best of times.
Equally, over the past week the government have gotten themselves into a terrible and completely unnecessary mess over COVID-19 hardship grants.
Readers will know I abhor politicians making and clothing their decisions with the defence “xyz has advised.”
So to hear the Premier say that he wouldn’t release information about who received the grants because “State Growth has advised against it”, but that he would have released the information if State Growth advised he should, was particularly grating.
There is, of course, absolutely no good reason why this information shouldn’t be released. In fact, it is standard practice.
Sure, no doubt Labor, the Greens and some Twitter trolls will scour the list to try to identify recipients that might have some sort of tenuous link to the Liberal Party, so dark and unsupported aspersions can be thrown (disclaimer: Font received a $1000 Business Energy Grant).
But this is a risk you take when you accept taxpayer funding for your business.
Instead, by stubbornly refusing to disclose this information the government is creating a far bigger problem: a perception that they have something to hide.
Throw in the usual conspiracy theories about political donations from those still fighting the 2018 state election campaign, and the hullabaloo about border entry exemptions, and what should have been a routine grant disclosure has become an unnecessary political problem.
It’s all an unhelpful distraction from the one issue
that really matters: getting our economy humming again, and getting Tasmanians back into jobs following the COVID lockdowns.
In two weeks, the Premier will hand down his seventh and arguably most important budget. It is generally agreed that with JobKeeper and JobSeeker yet to be fully unwound, the economy faces a tough march ahead, and the measures the state budget contains (or doesn’t) will be critical to Tasmania’s economic recovery. It’s been a long-time coming, but over the past couple of weeks the government has finally started to talk about unwinding the biggest handbrake of all on our economic recovery, the remaining COVID restrictions.
Tasmania’s events calendar, from arts, music and food festivals through to regional shows, is the lifeblood of the economy, and last week’s release of the Events Framework promising to restart this sector was very welcome. Like most Tasmanians, however, I remain perplexed by capacity limits in pubs and clubs and the ban on so-called vertical consumption of alcohol.
These restrictions, which continue to prevent the hospitality sector from trading at anything even remotely approaching full capacity, make even less sense now with tourists returning to our state.
Yes, our borders are now opened to safe states, but we know (according to Public Health) the chances of the virus entering from these places is a minuscule one in 10 million. While caution of the government around COVID is understandable, the Tasmanian public are not mugs. Should there be an outbreak here, Tasmanians can be expected to act appropriately and sensibly and accept temporarily increased restrictions if and as necessary.
Of course, Public Health constantly says “no” to further easing of restrictions; that is their job. But just as with those advising against the release of grant information, that doesn’t make their advice gospel.
As the Premier puts the finishing touches to his state budget, he would do well to consider the number one rule of politics: unelected bureaucrats advise, elected politicians decide.