Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (19:58): I rise to discuss the local economy innovation in my home state of Tasmania, and a Prime Minister only interested in self-promotion instead of the health of Tasmanians. Tasmania continues to strive and succeed in innovation, thanks to previous investments by state and federal Labor governments into education and training. This evening I want to outline the important and successful story of the enterprise innovation hub in Macquarie House in Launceston. In August this year, this exciting project was open for the public to see and it has been a long eight years in the making. The $2.8 million refurbishment of Macquarie House is a marvel, and if it weren't for the former federal Labor government this project would not have come to fruition. In 2013 the project secured federal funding, which covered the majority of the costs for the construction and renovation, which finally took place this year. It has been a battle to see this project delivered, but the project was supported in the end by both sides of politics, along with local businesses in Launceston, the Launceston city council and the University of Tasmania. It is an example of what is possible when individuals come together for better outcomes for the community. The purpose of the Enterprize innovation hub was born out of an idea from young entrepreneur James Riggall, who is a Launceston resident, founder of Bitlink, former president of Startup Tasmania, former community manager at Enterprize and former educational designer at UTAS. Mr Riggall's intention was to build a co-working space and business accelerator in Launceston for innovators. Finally, after much work, lobbying and courage, his vision has been delivered. There have been delays, changes of government and a whole range of challenges along the way, but now Launceston is one of the best places in Australia to build a start-up. This really has been a community project, with engineers giving their personal time to look at Macquarie House and journalists doing what they can to spread the word of the exciting hub. More recently, the Macquarie House project has been spearheaded by Enterprize and the Enterprize team, based in Launceston. There's going to be a new cafe-restaurant in the basement of Macquarie House. The Enterprize co-working space and start-up incubator will be located on the ground floor. On the first floor, UTAS will be undertaking their accelerated Bachelor of Business program, and the top floor of the building will be an event space not only for Enterprize but for other organisations who want to lease it. I hope that, in the years to come, thousands of Tasmanians use this space to benefit the entire community. I would like to take a moment to congratulate all those involved in this project. I would like to thank Jason Clare, the former shadow minister for communications; the former member for Bass, Geoff Lyons; former prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd; and all the community activists who made this project a reality. What has been achieved here is staggering. Macquarie House is an 1830s four-storey building in the heart of Launceston which sat vacant for decades. It has been transformed into a co-working space to support start-ups in the technology, digital and creative industries, which is a wonderful achievement. I will read a quote from James Riggall, who has championed this project from the beginning, because I couldn't say it any better than he has. He said: The vision behind the Macquarie House project was always that Launceston could be as great a place to build a startup company as anywhere else in the world. In 2013, when the project was first proposed, there were few projects of its kind in regional Australia. There seemed to be a sense that startup communities could only be built in major cities. The Macquarie House project challenged that idea and the original vision of building a thriving startup community in Tasmania continues to drive not only the Macquarie House project but also related projects like the Enterprize startup hubs in Hobart and Launceston. In many ways, the Macquarie House project staked a claim on a new future for Tasmania, a vision that is now being realised through a range of different projects. Today, the Macquarie House project is only part of Tasmania's startup story, but it was an important precursor for other projects that followed it, and it continues to play an important role. While I have time, I just want to touch on the fact that the Prime Minister was in Launceston on Saturday, when he officially cut the ribbon for this project. I welcome his visiting Launceston and seeing the project in its final stages. However, I must make comment about the circumstances of the visit and what the Prime Minister failed to do. He didn't acknowledge the work of the then communications minister. I was at those meetings when we toured Macquarie House and we spoke to James about the innovation and the project going forward. Unfortunately, it's even worse than that. The Prime Minister visited Launceston and the seat of Bass without acknowledging, let alone addressing, the issue of access to health for over 500,000 Tasmanians. Mr Morrison's visit displays to Tasmanians the intent of his prime ministership—that is, he's an advertising man who likes a good news story, but he isn't interested in rolling up his sleeves and tackling the health crisis in Tasmania. Our health system is broken. The Prime Minister was a mere 200 metres from the Launceston General Hospital on Friday night as he continued at Sporties his coronation from the 18 May election. However, he failed to address the biggest issues facing Launceston. One is bed block—emergency department waiting times, surgery wait times and undervalued and stressed medical fraternity. There are over 9,500 people in Tasmania waiting for elective surgery. Furthermore, only 43 per cent of patients in Bass have all GP visits bulk-billed. But the Prime Minister just ignored these realities. The state and federal Liberals have cut over $210 million from Tasmanians' health system, and consequently our health system is broken. The fact that the Prime Minister wouldn't even visit the Launceston General Hospital and look patients, doctors and nurses in the eyes says it all. This Prime Minister is a good-news prime minister and nothing more, just like the good-news Premier of Tasmania: they are both only interested in photo opportunities and good-news stories. The member for Bass, Ms Bridget Archer, would have assisted in putting together the Prime Minister's schedule, and yet she avoided talking about the most important issues facing our community. Clearly Ms Archer has no influence or standing with the Prime Minister. If she did, she would have taken the Prime Minister to the Launceston General Hospital. What Tasmanians expect from their government members, from their Prime Minister and indeed from their state's Premier are solutions to our broken health system. The medical fraternity is at wits' end. They know as well as anyone—if not better than us as politicians—how broken the health system is. We're at crisis point. We find Tasmanians spending 36 to 48 hours in accident and emergency, waiting to get a bed. This has such a devastating effect on these patients. We need to support all the staff, from the doctors to the cleaners, in our health system to ensure the best outcomes for them so that they have job satisfaction and they aren't dealing with additional stress because of the lack of funding. This was a litmus test for the Prime Minister; but, no, he failed that test just as he fails all Tasmanians when he neglects the health system that is so critical to every community. (Time expired)