LENNON HIDES FROM QUESTIONS OVER THE HYDRO’S FINANCES


Greens To Bring Scrutiny Proposal to Working Arrangements of Parliament Committee


The Tasmanian Greens today accused the Premier of running into hiding after he refused to hold Parliamentary Estimates Committee Scrutiny of Government Business Enterprises this year now that the major issue of a $300 million hole in Hydro’s finances have come to light.
Greens Opposition Leader Peg Putt MHA vowed to take the matter to the Working Arrangements of Parliament Committee for a decision and pointed out that if Paul Lennon has his way then the Annual Report for the year 2004-2005 and the subsequent report for 2005-2006 will not be examined until February 2007, an unacceptably long time lag and clear evidence that the government is evading scrutiny and accountability.
“It is an outrage that when the predictions of a Hydro financial crisis have now been borne out by leaked internal evidence that they have sought a $300 million bail out from the government or will be forced to sell assets, that the Premier continues to try and shroud the Hydro’s performance in secrecy,” Ms Putt said.
“It was bad enough that he chose to go to election at a time which wiped out the normal scrutiny of Government Business Enterprises for this year but to now fail to bring forward the examination of this and other GBE’s such as the TT Line, Forestry Tasmania and Metro, all of whom who have their own issues which need to be delved into, is quite extraordinary.”
“Make no mistake about it, Labor under Lennon is hiding what is going on from the Tasmanian people and will continue to do so for as long as possible.”
“Remember that it was the Government Business Enterprise Scrutiny Committee which finally brought focus to the brutal truth about the performance of the TT Line and whilst this made the government uncomfortable was very necessary, yet Paul Lennon is hiding from any similar efforts by the elected Members of Parliament to get to the bottom of what is going on in other Government Businesses.”
“The Greens have been saying for years now that there is a huge amount of debt accumulating in Government Business Enterprises and that like a House of Cards it will at some stage start to fall with severe repercussions, yet Paul Lennon didn’t want people to know about this at the election and still doesn’t want to come clean.”
“I will take a proposal to the Working Arrangements of Parliament Committee which actually determines the timing of such scrutiny committees and I will seek hearings to be brought forward so that we can hear evidence on the annual reports for the last two years, as waiting until late February or early March has already been proved problematic and in the current situation is simply untenable.”
“On one hand we have an award winning author of a report critical of Basslink calling for a Royal Commission, and on the other the Premier won’t even expedite the normal Parliamentary examination to make up for the cancellation of the committee hearings earlier this year,” Ms Putt said.