Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Saturday 4th June, 2011

Selling the farm to pay for Green-Labor waste

Documents obtained by the Liberals under Right to Information show that the Green-Labor Government was preparing for a fire sale of assets as far back as December last year to plug holes in the budget created by Government waste and mismanagement.

A letter, dated December 3rd 2010, was sent by then Treasurer Michael Aird and Minister Bryan Green, asks Aurora to start preparing ‘non-core’ assets for sale, and also includes the Tamar Valley Power Station.

The Government has blown a billion dollar black hole in the budget and are ready to sell taxpayer owned assets to paper over the problem.

We’ve already seen in recent weeks that the Greens and Labor refused to take the ‘for sale’ sign off TOTE Tasmania. Now we know that the problem is much worse and the Green-Labor Government has since last year been preparing to sell anything that isn’t nailed down.

This is a clear sign that the Green-Labor Government has completely lost control of the budget. Not only are they preparing to sack teachers, nurses and police officers they are going to sell the family farm as well to pay for their ineptitude.