Unions, Greens lash report on COVID recovery

THE report of a government economic recovery committee glossed over the interests of workers and completely ignored climate change, unions and the Greens say.

The Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council handed down its interim report on Monday.

While it identified problems caused by casual and insecure work, it did not make any recommendations to address them, Unions Tasmania secretary Jessica Munday said.

She described the report as underwhelming and predictable given the nine-peson panel did not include workers’ representatives.

“They make 64 recommendations and they observe in the report at multiple points Tasmania’s

reliance on casual work and part time work – literally half of our working population work less than 35 hours a week,’’ she said.

“They make no recommendations around the role government could play or what structural change that could be made … they find it significant enough to write about in the report and say it’s problematic, but there’s no recommendation on things that they can change.”

Greens Leader Cassy O’Connor said the report was “a business as usual approach that pays lip service to longstanding social and economic disadvantage and makes no mention of climate change”.

“Regrettably, the council has not presented a vision for a sustainable, post-COVID Tasmania where we lift people out of disadvantage and give young people, who are terrified about the state of the climate, hope for the future and the skills to equip them for a heating planet,” she said.

“It’s ironic that an interim report which talks about taking a wellbeing focus, fails to address the biggest factor that will impact on the lives of young Tasmanians – climate change.”