Franklin Electorate
PRACTICAL HELP NEEDED FOR FORCED ADOPTION LEGACY: NSW Waives Fees For Medical Record Searches
Paul O’Halloran MP
Greens Member for Braddon
The Tasmanian Greens today called for the Children’s Minister Michelle O’Byrne to follow New South Wales by waiving fees to access medical records for parents and adopted children affected by forced adoption practices.
Greens Children’s spokesperson Paul O’Halloran MP said that as Tasmania prepares to make an official apology to people [...]
September 17, 2012
Want genuine reform? Look to a minority government.
Past and present minority governments in Tasmania have consistently shown far greater capacity than majority governments to deliver a reform agenda, especially on tough economic reforms.
Despite attempts by some to portray minority government as unstable, the current Labor-Green power sharing arrangement is the opposite, and is helping deliver some of the most important reforms in [...]
June 29, 2012
Help the Libs quit their dirty habit – and refuse Big Tobacco blood money
The Liberal Party remains the only registered political party in Tasmania that still accepts money from Big Tobacco.
The AEC’s most recent round of political donations disclosures revealed that the Liberals took $22,000 from British American Tobacco and $15,900 from Phillip Morris in 2010-11.
But the actual figure could be far higher, because our current political donation [...]
May 31, 2012
State Would Profit From Wellbeing Index
One of the proposals in the Budget reply speech I gave in Parliament yesterday was for a Wellbeing Index.
There’s a link to my full speech below but I’ll repeat the following quotation:
“The Gross National Product [cousin of GDP] includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts [...]
May 22, 2012
GREENS’ INITIAL STATE BUDGET RESPONSE: Fiscal Strategy Relaxed While Responsible Economic Structural Reform Maintained
The Tasmanian Greens today welcomed the injection of flexibility into the State Budget’s fiscal strategy, which will allow Health, Education and the Department of Police and Emergency Services to be quarantined from further budget cuts, and will see $120 million returned to Health through reduced savings targets.
Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said that while a [...]
May 17, 2012
EMRS Poll Result: Greens Continue to Deliver
The rise in support of the Greens’ in the latest EMRS state voting intentions poll reflects, I believe, a growing awareness of the Greens’ constructive role in Tasmanian politics.
The Greens tend not to place a great deal of emphasis on the result of any political opinion polls, regardless of the result.
We the Greens have stepped [...]
May 15, 2012
Tasmania’s economy needs to smarten up, not toughen up
The comments reported today by the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, were nothing more than populist grandstanding from an old-school unionist stuck in a last-century economic mindset.
Tasmania needs to smarten-up its economy instead, by transitioning away from an over-reliance on market-exposed heavy industries and bulk commodity exports.
Paul Howes has described himself [...]
May 12, 2012
Greened-up Budget good for Tassie
By Nick McKim, Greens Leader & Franklin MP
One of the best things about the Federal Budget was its unmistakable shade of green.
What I mean by that it that this Budget delivers on a number of key Greens initiatives that will ease cost of living pressures for low-income earners.
It would have been an ever stronger shade of [...]
May 10, 2012
Half-way – and some fine Greens wins to show for it
Nick McKim MP
This week marks the two-year mark of the Greens entering into the historic powersharing arrangement with Labor.
Below is a list of some of the ‘headline’ achievements which the Greens have managed to secure directly as a result of this agreement. Click on the links to take you to the relevant website. The full list [...]
April 19, 2012
Greens again calling for MPs’ pay freeze – Lib/Lab MPs again opposing us
The Greens are again calling for an immediate MPs’ pay freeze, rather than the proposed two per cent cap across the next two years.
Given neither Labor nor Liberal support this, the Greens’ preferred option, it now unfortunately appears that some form of salary increase will flow to Tasmanian MPs.
The idea that MPs could see a [...]
April 17, 2012
