The rot has set in and it’s clearly time to change a government in decay.

Anyone who has been following David Bartlett’s attempt to enter the soap opera ratings war will already know that the Labor Party has wasted $500,000 of taxpayers’ money on TV infomercials that were never even broadcast.

I’m not saying that promoting Tasmania to a Tasmanian or national audience on TV is necessarily a bad idea.  We do need to be able to creatively respond to the marketplace to promote our beautiful state and encourage tourists and tourist dollars to come here.

But right now, with job cuts and reductings in government services (including cutting back Tourism Tasmania’s marketing budget) it’s monumentally hypocritical for the Labor Party to be wasting money with such abandon as this. 

The issue right now is not about the idea, its about integrity.  That’s because the Treasurer Michael Aird told Parliament that he didn’t authorise the TV series going to a public tender; the documents say otherwise.  See more on ABC Online.

Why don’t they just tell the truth?  The ABC lodged a Freedom of Information request which came back with news that the Treasurer’s office sent an email saying the Treasurer was happy for the project to “start moving.”  The problem with giving contradictory statements is that it can get you into more of a pickle than if you’d just told the truth in the first place. 

So where is David Bartlett in all this?  Well, it’s really just a case of “Yes, Treasurer”. 

In the latest report, Mr Bartlett says that said he won’t even be asking the Treasurer for an explanation of the contradictory statements.

Of course he won’t – who knows what he’d find if he turned that rock over.