STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator TYRRELL (Tasmania) (13:04): I want to call out to the people of northern Tasmania—people who have shown extraordinary patience while their state government fails them time and time again. It's 12 years, everybody. For 12 years the Tasmanian Liberals have held power in our state.

That's 12 years to plan for the future and 12 years to fix the problems of today, and what do we have to show for it? We have no long-term energy strategy for our industrial base, no certainty for the workers and businesses who depend on it and no vision for how northern Tasmania will grow over the next decade, let alone the next generation. Walk through Bell Bay, George Town or Launceston.

Talk to the workers, the small-business owners and the families who've built their lives around our industrial heartland. They aren't asking for handouts. They're asking for a government that shows up.

Instead, what have they got? They have a state Liberal government that let the situation at Liberty Bell Bay drift for a year without leadership and without urgency, until it was too late. We need our state government to take action to support our workers and support investment for our businesses and our industries, and they've had 12 years to do it.

Let's not forget that it was the Tassie Libs who were so incompetent that they built ferries that couldn't even fit the ports they were going to dock in. The Liberals used to be about jobs and growth. Now the state Liberals seem to be about neglecting and then deflecting.

Without a competent state government, Tasmania can't grow. We need to boost economic growth in Tasmania and create the rewarding jobs our young people can build a future on. That means the state government needs to pull its head in and lock in a power deal for Bell Bay Aluminium.

It means backing a deeper port at Bell Bay to unlock renewable energy projects. It means reducing red tape while building more housing and fixing our roads. It means getting behind new industries like helium.

And it means delivering Marinus Link so our heavy industry has the cheaper, more secure power it needs to compete and grow. With my amazing colleague Jess Teesdale in the lower house, I've spoken with our small-business community directly through roundtables across the north. The message from them has been very consistent, and it is very clear that they feel let down.

They feel like the state government hasn't had their back—not on energy costs, not on infrastructure, not when it has mattered the most. You can't govern for more than a decade and still call yourself 'caught by surprise'. This isn't bad luck.

It's the result of 12 years of neglect. There's a common thread here—12 years of neglect—and Tasmanians are the ones paying for it. They deserve better and they know it.