Noting - The Premier's State of the State address 2023

Thursday 30 March 2023

[3.30 p.m.]

Ms ARMITAGE (Launceston) - Mr President, I will make a contribution on the Premier's address on behalf of my electorate of Launceston.  The north of the state is a gateway to our north, north-west, and east coasts and to the mainland.  We are seeing confidence return through our visitor numbers and the types of events we are seeing in the community.  People are coming together more to spend time shopping, eating out and experiencing the natural wonders our part of the state has to offer.  Consequently, they are finding that there are more opportunities for hospitality and retail businesses to open or expand.

We know that things are not all golden.  The cost-of-living expenses are rising everywhere and Tasmania's north is no exception.  Rising interest rates and difficulty in finding affordable housing have made things as difficult as ever for those who are not as well off.  Young people are abandoning the idea of ever owning a home and consequently, people are putting off major life decisions like having children, pursuing career and education opportunities, and are becoming disillusioned with a system which is supposed to help provide opportunities and not stifle them.

Older people with greater resilience and experience might find that it is simply a matter of holding on.  We know that many difficult situations are temporary and most people can weather them.  This is a very difficult sell, especially for younger people, whose education has been disrupted due to the pandemic.  They now find themselves growing up in a world rife with economic difficulties and environmental worries.  It is all that many younger people have ever known.

This is why it is incumbent upon us to make sure that things improve, and improve soon.  Tasmania's ageing population will not be able to cope if there is an ongoing flight of young people from our state to pursue opportunities elsewhere in the country or the world.  We will not have the skills or the capabilities that will be required to look after our population which, on average, tends to be older and sicker than the rest of the country.

Regarding housing and homelessness, just like everywhere else, in Launceston we see many people now sleeping rough, in tents, in sleeping bags in corners.  At Henty House itself, where our office is, for a period of time we had people sleeping, particularly with animals, just under the cover to shelter from rain.  It is sad to see people who have nowhere to go and do not know where they are going to go.  When they are moved on, they still have nowhere to go and they move to a new spot, which is constantly still no home and no hope of a home.

I admit that some do not want to have a home; some people do too.  They actually prefer not to have the responsibility of a home, but you have to feel for those families.  Recently, I went to breakfast at the Salvation Army.  They had a special breakfast and they invited members of the public to come along and to meet some of the people there.  There was one family with a dog; they had all their belongings outside.  They came in for breakfast. 

I will mention one young man who was sitting at the table.  I asked if I could sit down with him, he said yes, but he did not really want to speak.  He sat and ate his breakfast.  He was very tidily dressed and looked very smart.  After a while, he started to open up and he told me that he had moved down from the Northern Territory because all his family lived in Tasmania, not far out of Launceston, but far enough that it was a little difficult getting in; he had to catch a couple of buses.  He was unemployed and did not have a job, but every morning that the Salvation Army opened, he got up, dressed himself neatly, and came into town and had breakfast.  He wanted to make sure that he just did not stay home and do nothing.  He came and he looked for work.  To talk to him, to hear his story and the fact that he was so keen, he was not down or depressed.  He got up, he got his two buses into town each day, because he wanted to actually make something of himself and he felt sure he would actually find some work in the not too distant future. 

It was wonderful speaking to a young man like that who, at this time, did not have any opportunities but had not given up on them and made sure he did not stay at home and do nothing.  He got up, came in and made the effort.  It is good to speak to young people like that and appreciate that often young people or any of these people that do not have homes, get a bad rap, but at the end of the day, there are very few who actually do not want help and to achieve.  We should look to the fact most of these people are very eager.  As has been told to me in the past, many people are just one pay packet away from being homeless themselves.  We do not appreciate how many people in the community actually live from payday to payday.  It is becoming more prevalent now and more difficult.

Talking about homelessness and homes, recently I attended Tas City Building - the launch of their amazing portable homes.  When you walked in, you think gosh, I could actually live in one of these, they would make fabulous shacks if someone wanted something smaller.  If someone wanted a larger home, you could buy one, put it on a block and then when you could afford to, you could buy a second and join them together, put a little roof over them.  Reasonably priced and classed as affordable portable homes, designed and built to the highest standards.  They certainly looked a very high standard.

A one-bedroom started from $122 000; two bedrooms from $142 000; and three bedrooms from $222 000.  They were very attractive homes.  Everything that Tas City Building do, they do seem to do very well.  It was great to see these affordable homes that someone can have as granny flat or put somewhere else, but it is actually completed.  It is a home set out so nicely with a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, built-ins, just absolutely fabulous.  They pick them up on big pallets and had little areas where you could go underneath, lift it up and put it on a truck to take it to wherever you wanted.

It is good to see in the building industry, particularly with the homelessness that we have, these great affordable homes.

An area to go into is health.  I was pleased to see in the Premier's address, first that the 97 temporary Ambulance Tasmania positions are now permanent.  That is wonderful.  We all know how difficult it is for our paramedics and ambulances officers.  We hear all the time how hard it is, particularly with ambulance ramping and they get caught at the hospital.  It is great news that 97 temporary positions are now made permanent and I am sure they are extremely pleased.  Anything to take the pressure off is certainly good.

I also note the committing of $38 million over four years to fund an additional 22 000 endoscopies.  The Deputy Leader will be able to tell me, but I am assuming it is only endoscopies, it is not colonoscopies - they are very different.  They are all done in the endoscopy clinic.  There is such a wait for colonoscopies.  The federal government send out their envelopes for people over a certain age to get checked and do their faecal test, but the unfortunate part is, should they come back with a positive and do not have private health insurance, then what happens?  We all know that is the real worry about that.  You get your positive test - because they do nag you if you do not send it back - then are told to see your doctor, who obviously says go.  How many people can afford private health? 

We are in a fortunate situation, and I am sure most of us in here have private health cover.  I have had it since I was 16 and am too scared to give it up now.  I might need a hip or a knee, particularly after the walking I will be doing in the next five weeks.  It is something you do not give up.  I wondered if it does include them.  There is a massive wait for categories one, two and three.  It is the same old story, if you can treat some of these things before they become major then the treatment is much less than someone getting a full-blown cancer or something much worse which costs a lot more and is terrible for the patient and for the community.  If we can fix things quickly - and it is the same with the emergency department.  The faster we can have people seen for general treatments, they do not end up as emergencies and the cheaper it is to treat these situations. 

It can be an issue and the member for Murchison when she speaks - I am not sure if she has spoken yet -

Mr PRESIDENT - She was first cab off the ranks.

Ms Forrest - You were not listening.  You left the Chamber.  You missed out on an excellent speech, I might say.

Ms ARMITAGE - I can recall almost every word.  I will have to go back to Hansard and have a look.

Ms Forrest - It received quite wide acclaim.

Ms ARMITAGE - I have not had a call for some time, as I had in the past, with regard to obstetrics and to the number of north‑west patients coming to the Launceston General to have their babies.  The concern raised was it was a lot of pressure on the Launceston General with that many patients from the north‑west.  I am not sure whether that is still occurring.

Ms Forrest - They did that during COVID-19 because they had no choice.

Ms ARMITAGE - Mid‑last year I was getting calls with regard to it.  Particularly, people between the North West Regional and the Launceston General Hospital, instead of going back, they came forward.  I have not had concerns raised over the last few months but it certainly was raised and I mentioned it previously.  We all need to look after our nurses, particularly the work that they do and our doctors.  Our nurses are frontline in our hospitals and it is important to appreciate how much they do, often under difficult circumstances, particularly when people are off on COVID-19 and all of a sudden, they are doing double shifts and filling in and working in extreme circumstances.

I will mention the hospice and ask some questions about this.  It is pleasing to see it looks like it is moving in the right direction.  The federal government is working together with the state Government to try to find a location for the standalone hospice.  I make special mention of Barb Baker and her hardworking group that has been working for many years to try to get a standalone hospice in our community, not in a hospital setting, for those who have terminal cancer requiring palliative care. 

That is no disrespect to the Melwood Wing at St Luke's.  It is wonderful and serves a great purpose.  To have a standalone hospice in an area that people can have their family stay with them, their pets can come and they can go outside.  It would be great to give people in their last weeks, days, months, whatever it might be, a nice setting.  I am pleased it is moving along in the right direction.

I will move on to timber.  Speciality timbers, and it has recently been raised with the whole House recently with an email.  It has been something going on for quite some time.  I am sure we are familiar with Andrew Denman and his boats.  We have all had many meetings with Andrew.  I recall at one stage he had a job to build a beautiful celery pine boat but could not get enough celery pine.  It is concerning that the celery pine is particularly used for craftsman boats and we have issues getting enough of the speciality timber.  I am sure Mr President and some other members in this House recall a committee at Christmas time about a lot of the areas that were of concern given over for specialty timbers.  It might have been Andrew Denman, George Harris or one of these great gentlemen saying the area was full of button grass and they did not see too much specialty timber. 

I am hoping we can find the specialty timbers for some of these wonderful craftsmen we have to make some of these beautiful products.  I am not saying cut anything down.  A lot of it is under water and laying down and it is certainly worth seeing what we can find for them. 

The other worry, just veering off a little bit from timber, is that we no longer have any paper mills in Australia.  The last one recently closed.  I was not aware of this, until we wanted to order some paper and we discovered that paper was very hard to get because it all has to come from overseas.  Who would have thought that would ever come to pass - that we are all now buying overseas paper?

Education is certainly an issue that is dear to everyone's hearts.  The TAFE courses have been mentioned by the member for Elwick, and we all received the same letters with regard to courses.  The member for McIntyre and I both received an email about the plumbing courses and the Certificate III and Certificate IV.  I recall, quite a few years ago, raising the issue and it was addressed at that time.  I do not know whether it has gone backwards, or whether they have changed it again.  At that time, plumbers were coming to me, saying that their apprentices had to drive to Devonport to do their courses, after working all day and being quite exhausted.  I was very pleased that the TAFE courses were then arranged to be in Launceston, so they could do their work  and then do their couple of hours at night.  However, the member for McIntyre and I have now been told that a young apprentice, who wanted to do his certificate IV, had to go to Hobart, as opposed to Launceston.  Obviously, that could not be at night; it would have to be set days.  I wondered what might be happening there now?

I have always disagreed with the Premier about the continuation of years 11 and 12 in city high schools.  I have always found that strange, when there are some very good colleges in the city.  We have Launceston College and Newstead College; and yet we have Queechy, Kings Meadows, Riverside, and Prospect - which are very good high schools, but they are only two or three kilometres from our colleges.  I understand the reason for remote high schools to have years 11 and 12, when it is a long way for someone to come in.  However, we have specialised teachers at Newstead College and Launceston College, whereas we do not have specialised teachers at our schools. 

I know they might come down for some courses, but then they have to try to provide extra classes, and I wonder if students are not going to do better when they are with a cohort at the same college.  They have to move away from their school and get out of their comfort zone and move down to the college, which is only two or three kilometres away.  They do not have to go 30 or 40 kilometres, which I understood was the reason behind the extension.  I still have an issue with that, and I often discuss that with the Premier at Estimates.  We have agreed to disagree on that one; but it is a strange situation. 

Another interesting area relates to some of the community work that I do.  I have come across high school students who are only required to go to school one day a week.  I found it unusual - they would say 'I go to school on Wednesday'.  I know it is to try to keep people engaged, but when you are already in the criminal system or the youth justice system and you only go to school one day a week, you are probably still trying to do things you should not be doing on the other days of the week.  Is there some way we can address that?

I spoke with another young person, and they only had to go to school one afternoon a week.  I am not sure what we can do about it, but I may discuss it at Estimates. 

Looking at employment, it is very difficult for a lot of industries such as hospitality.  People in the hospitality industry say that if you have your RSA and you are halfway good at pulling a beer or doing waitressing, you will get a job anywhere.  People are just crying out for staff, and interviewing staff all the time  to find people to fill the spots so they can give good service to people. 

There is a lot of employment out there.  My husband had a hotel for 42 years, and he would give a lot of employment to people at university.  I do not know whether that is still happening because a lot of the courses are online.  A lot of the young people would move up from the coast and he would employ them; they would come and work after hours to get some income.

We were talking to the Samoans last night about their fellow countrymen who come down here to work.  We have quite a few islanders working in Launceston, picking berries and fruit.  I regularly see them at the supermarket, and they are the friendliest people.  It is quite lovely to see them here.

Turning back to education and schools, and bus services.  I raised an issue to do with schools with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.  I understood that the four terms were initially set up to try to get the schools to correlate their terms.  I had some concerns raised by some parents earlier this year; their children went to St Patrick's College, but the private schools were starting earlier than the public schools, and the school bus services were not starting until the public schools went back.  I do not know if there is anything that Metro or the school bus services can do.  I had a response from the minister that it was a little difficult, because the private schools had decided to start a week or so earlier which caused a bit of grief for parents because the buses simply were not there.  I do not think it is a problem for the bus services to fix, to try to get the terms together. 

Metro was mentioned yesterday, to do with the JackJumpers.  I always have a few issues with Metro about bus services in Launceston - particularly St Leonards, when I was on the Launceston City Council.  Some of the other areas also have problems.  They used to say that they do not put buses on some of those routes because no one uses them; but my issue is you cannot use what is not there.  It is very hard to develop passengers using a bus service until it is there.  It is a bit of a chicken and an egg situation, and hard to know what comes first. 

It is a difficult situation, but many people need to catch the bus, and we are trying to have fewer cars in the city.  We may need to try and find some way of making our public transport more accessible, and easier for people to get around.  I know we have the Tiger Bus in the city; that still goes around - it does operate at a loss, but even operating at a loss, it is a win in other ways.  It is a bit like health.  If you can keep people healthy and out of the system, then down the track it saves us more money.  We spend less money.  I realised when I said it that I was getting a little confused.

It was very pleasing also to see that we have a new commander in Launceston, Kate Chambers.  I did not know that our police commander Stuart Wilkinson had left until I read in yesterday's Examiner that Kate Chambers was now taking over.  It is pleasing to see the number of police officers we have as we have had some issues, particularly in the mall, with shoplifting and in different areas of Brisbane Street near the cinema where groups of young people tend to be causing some problems.  I have also been to meetings with retailers in the suburbs and the supermarkets where we are having some problems.  It is really concerning when we have people coming in.  You do not know whether they are going to the supermarkets and stealing because they simply do not have any money for food or whether they are doing it to cause grief.  My understanding is it was a mixture of both.

At the time I spoke with acting commander Nathan Johnson, who was looking to put together groups to be more visible on the streets.  Sometimes, just seeing the police or a police car can have the effect of putting people off doing something they should not.  I think it has improved slightly.  The biggest problem is often they will move from one area to another area so until they grow a bit older, often you do not get rid of the problem, you just move it to another area.

While I am on the police, I will talk about road safety.  It was good to see the response to our road safety report from the Government, that they were accepting a majority of our recommendations.  When I was driving down on Monday evening, a car flashed past me.  As I was rounding the corner I noticed a very smart red and black hatchback and I noticed the occupant wore a hi-vis police jacket.  He overtook me and down the track he pulled over the car that had passed me, a bit of divine justice.  They are out and about, even if you do not see them, trying to make sure we drive responsibly.

People can get distracted very easily if you do not have cruise control.  I would recommend it to those people who drive long distances.  You get used to it.

I am delighted that we are having some upgrades to UTAS Stadium and the Inveresk Precinct and the new convention facilities that have been mentioned.  I do not really want to go towards the proposal at Macquarie Point, other than to remind the southern people that they have cricket and we have always had football.  I do not believe we should be held hostage to the AFL.

Last year I went to a function at Peppers to do with tourism and they were talking about an AFL team.  I asked the question of one of these gentlemen from the mainland, who was involved with the AFL, is an AFL team for Tasmania dependent on a new stadium?  He stood there and he said, 'categorically not'.  It was very interesting to receive that information.

I included some questions on a newsletter I put out in November.  My questions were:  do you support an AFL team?  Do you still support an AFL team if it is dependent on a stadium?  I got back five saying 'yes' and all the rest were 'no' to the second question.  The majority were 'yes' to the first question; most were not too worried about having an AFL team, they were happy with that.  A couple said 'no' to an AFL team, but I had five saying 'yes' out of all the responses that I received back.  That speaks volumes for what Launceston thinks about the south being the home of football and not cricket.

The Tamar River is always an interesting one.  I have been trying for the Tamar River or the kanamaluka estuary - I am looking at the member for Windermere, as it really is his.  It is between him and the member for Rosevears; it is their responsibility as it sits between them.

Mr Duigan - Love to have you on board.

Ms ARMITAGE - Always on board to try to get the mud and sewage out of it.  It was only yesterday I noticed on Facebook that someone had a picture of some horrible sludge going into it to do with the rain.  We all know that with the rain and the joint sewer and water pipes that there is no alternative at the moment as the TasWater infrastructure is still not completed and there are no extra pump stations that may clean -

Mr Duigan - A great deal of work is happening in that space and I will have more to say about that.

Ms ARMITAGE - I am pleased to hear that a great deal of work is happening.  I was at the Seaport at the weekend and they were still very concerned about the look of it.  It looks great at high tide.  Our boat is just out of the mud most of the time.

Mr Duigan - Your boat is massive though, enormous.

Ms ARMITAGE - It can really only go out in a reasonable amount of water.

Mr PRESIDENT - That must be difficult for the Tamar.

Ms Forrest - Talk about boat envy.

Ms ARMITAGE - It gives my husband something to play with when I am down here.  He goes and plays on his boat.

The Tamar River, the kanamaluka, needs some work and I will be pleased to hear from the member for Windermere what is actually happening to clean the mud and sewage out.  At the end of the day, it has always been thought that having clean water would be a great asset.  I recall a few years ago, someone got a very nasty infection from the water.  You always remember not to touch the water when you go down there, certainly do not swim in it.

The MyHome shared equity scheme with the Bank of us and the 2 per cent deposit is a good scheme.  I have mentioned it to many people who have taken it up and have not had any difficulty.  It is good to get that feedback when you talk to young people.  I spoke with a couple at the Kings Meadows Bowls Club who were getting married and looking for somewhere to live.  I had a message from them to say that it was just fantastic; they went into the Bank of us, obtained a MyHome shared equity and were able to get a home, and that was very pleasing to see.  They have had a child already.  Sometimes, we really do need to appreciate some of the things that are out there.  So, a deposit up to $150 000 if you are buying an existing home and a property price cap of $600 000, and you  have 30 years to pay it back.

I cannot finish off today without mentioning my concern about the first homebuyer's grant.  I am pleased we have it, but I consider it should always be not just for a new home.  As I recall, you can get half the stamp duty if you are buying an existing home, but it is just for first homebuyers.  For most first homebuyers, unless they are fairly well off or have a lot of help, it would be easier to buy an existing home, rather than build a new home.  It would be such a help, to be able to get the first homebuyers grant - because it is called 'first homebuyers', not 'first home builders'.

Ms Forrest - That is historical.

Ms ARMITAGE - I know it is historical.  The member for Murchison and I disagree on this.

Ms Forrest - When most of the accountants and economic experts agree.

Ms ARMITAGE - Well, you can call them economic experts all you like, but having been in real estate, I can recall that when someone went to buy a house, the house did not become $20 000 more expensive because someone was buying it with a first homebuyer's grant.  It simply enabled them to have a deposit.  I do not care what your experts say, having been there on the ground and seen people with it, I found that to be able to have that for a first homebuyer, as well as a first home builder, was very beneficial.  I believe it is important to voice my concern and the concern of my community.

I notice that the Government is investing in health and wellbeing centres, with one in your electorate, member for Windermere.  It is a good investment, because the more we can keep people healthy and out of the hospital system, the better off our system will be.  It is saving money down the track, by spending money now to keep people healthy, to have better and healthier lives.  It is good to see money being spent on health and wellbeing and on sport  and keeping people active.  The more we can do that, the more money that we can save and the better people's lives can be. 

Mr President, I note the Premier's address.