Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck

Flights return a good starting point

Senator Richard Colbeck, The Advocate, 1 November 2024

The decision by Qantas to reinstate two overnight/early morning services from January 31 next year is a welcome development as we move to the return of Q400 Dash 8’s we enjoyed on the Devonport/Melbourne service prior to COVID, however it still leaves a capacity hole in the service level we previously enjoyed and the region can clearly sustain.

With the opportunity for this region to leverage off the recent announcement of Devonport as Australia’s Top Tourism Town and the ranking of Launceston and the surrounding Tamar region as the only Australian location in their global top ten by Lonely Planet, we need to see as much capacity into the region as possible, supported by appropriate high-quality marketing.

Colbeck steps in with hopes to safeguard mining, fishing and forestry

Tess Kelly, The Advocate, 1 October 2024

A new bill is expected to be introduced in a bid to stand up for families and communities who rely on mining, fishing and forestry.

Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck will table the new bill in parliament next week to protect jobs and provide certainty to regional economies who rely on the industries, like the state's West Coast.

Read in The Advocate

Labor letting down Australians struggling with rising costs of living

The Advocate, Senator Richard Colbeck, 28 July 2024

Every day, Australians are faced with the cost of living crisis making it harder and harder to get ahead. Anyone who has visited the supermarket lately would notice the phenomenal increase in the price of their weekly groceries. And with grocery prices up 11.4%, this is only part of the increased costs hardworking Aussies are up against.

In a financial climate like this, Australians should be able to look toward a government they can trust, however, what they have found with the Albanese Labor government is far from that. All they have given us is constant broken promises on much-needed cost of living relief.

Read in The Advocate

Farmers to be worse off if government's biosecurity plan becomes reality

The Advocate, Richard Colbeck, 21 April 2024

Here is a simple question: why should Australian farmers pay the cost of the biosecurity risk created by imported products?

Shouldn't that cost be borne by those that created the risk, those importing the products?

You would think that the answer should be simple.

NewsCorp: The AFL’s illicit drug policy is not fit for purpose

Richard Colbeck, 5th April 2024

The AFL has a big problem.

The act of deliberately avoiding a drug test is a breach of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code – it must be.

Therefore, the act of giving a test to determine the presence of drugs to avoid game day testing and the risk of testing positive must be a breach of the WADA Code – it is an act of avoidance, a deliberate one.

If as it appears from reporting and admissions to date under the AFL’s illicit drugs code, then that code is likewise in breach of the WADA Code.

While the AFL illicit drugs code may have been once fit for purpose, it clearly no longer is.

Every one of the players who is alleged to have used this mechanism to avoid game day testing is or should be liable for sanction under the WADA Code as would any other athlete who is found to have attempted to avoid testing.

The AFL and players should be well aware of this, recall the AFL player who offered a sports drink as a sample.

Anyone knowingly facilitating the avoidance of testing should likewise face sanction if the allegations aired are true – it’s going to be a pretty long queue!

There is absolutely no way that either WADA or Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) can let this current situation go without investigation and resolution.

If this current situation is allowed to continue, how do you expect every other

athlete who is required to comply with testing and availability requirements to comply?

The whole system is undermined.

If anyone thinks this is in any way unreasonable, for some perspective, think of the many athletes who are required to advise testing authorities of their whereabouts for the possibility of being tested, and the penalties they face for not doing so or being available.

Most of them earn nowhere near AFL players’ salaries but are on a much tighter leash.

What must they be thinking when we see what has come out this week and the, “there’s nothing to see here,” approach from the AFL?

What is clear, is that the AFL illicit drug policy needs to be revised, and the practice of aiding

and abetting avoidance of testing stopped.

If the AFL aren’t prepared to make the changes required to bring their policy into compliance with the WADA code, their WADA accreditation should be on the line.

The AFL illicit drug policy has long been controversial, there are many who say it has been effective and worked well – until recently, when it has morphed into a WADA non-compliant monster.

Now is the time to fix it, and if there is a bigger problem in the AFL, time to fix that too.

Australia is seen as a global leader in sports integrity with dozens of nations looking to us and SIA as a model.

What sort of tragedy would it be if that leadership was brought undone by our national code.

It is in all our interests that this gets sorted out, now, and quickly.

Senator Richard Colbeck was Minister for Sport 2019-22, oversaw the creation of SIA from ASADA and was a WADA Foundation and Executive Board Member.

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The Advocate - Politically Speaking: Labor chaos at both state and federal level on show for all to see

15 January 2023, Senator Richard Colbeck

The chaos of state and federal Labor was on full display yet again over summer with Labor's Tasmanian treasury spokesman complaining about a slowing economy all whilst federal Labor are taking credit for slowing it down.

We have all watched as state Labor opposes critical elements of hosting an AFL team in Tasmania, all whilst Federal Labor and the Prime Minister support it.

While all the bickering occurs, we hear nothing from either on the progress of a number of key environmental approvals or processes that are critical to employment and the economy in Tasmania, as well as the energy transition that Labor claims to be a key policy focus.

Dangerous Precedent by Minister

Senator Richard Colbeck

Senator Anne Urquhart seeks to downplay the seriousness of Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek's decision to reconsider an 11 year old decision by a previous Labor minister (Adv., Dec 4). What she does not say is that Ms Plibersek has created a precedent that opens the door to challenge any decision made under the EPBC Act. For the first time, a decision made so long ago, long after the project commenced, is being reconsidered - the precedent opens reconsideration for any other approval under the act. It creates uncertainty not only for the salmon industry in Tasmania, but every other industry in the country operating under an EPBC Act approval. That's what makes it so reckless and that's what creates so much uncertainty. Ms Plibersek could have made the decision not to reopen the approval, not create the precedent, not create the uncertainty. Clearly Ms Plibersek wasn't taking much notice of her colleagues Senator Urquhart or Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, when she made that decision.

Senator Richard Colbeck, Devonport

Question over GP numbers

Senator Richard Colbeck

State Labor members of parliament continue to run around Tasmania trying to make out that supply of GPs is a state issue when clearly it is a federal one.

They have done so in Lyons where the federal member refuses to stand up for his local communities or pull his weight, and now in Braddon with the situation at East Devonport.

What is curious though is that the six-month overdue Devonport urgent care clinic can attract nine new doctors, while the East Devonport Medical Centre can't attract any.

It makes you wonder whether federal Labor have pushed doctors to its urgent care clinic at the expense of the more than 6000 patients of the East Devonport Medical Centre.

Senator Richard Colbeck, Devonport

Note - for transparency, Richard Colbeck has been a patient at East Devonport Medical Centre for more than 30 years.

Powerful US and UK committees lobbied to pressure PwC to release report sought in Australia

Henry Belot, The Guardian, 4 November 2023

Exclusive: Richard Colbeck urged counterparts to seek document used to clear firm’s partners of wrongdoing

Powerful parliamentary oversight committees in the US and the UK have been urged to pressure consultancy firm PwC to publish a report used to clear its international partners of wrongdoing.

In response to a scandal involving the misuse of confidential Australian Treasury information about proposed multinational tax avoidance laws, PwC global commissioned the law firm Linklaters to investigate the conduct of its international partners.

Australian academics apologise for false AI-generated allegations against big four consultancy firms

Henry Belot, The Guardian, 3 November 2023

The Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, who chairs a separate inquiry into the consulting industry, said the incident was “a salient reminder to everyone to check your sources”.

“This shows how out of control things can get if basic facts are not correct.”

'Totally unacceptable': PwC boss sorry for tax scandal

Andrew Brown

The new head of PwC Australia has issued a public apology for the embattled firm's role in a tax advice scandal.

Chief executive Kevin Burrowes appeared before a parliamentary inquiry into consultancy firms, where senators grilled him over PwC's conduct.

The Advocate - Politically Speaking: Government's lack of action is becoming evident

Richard Colbeck, 8 October

The inability of the Albanese Labor government to deliver is becoming more and more evident.

We are witnessing an ongoing narrative of broken promises and failure to deliver within committed time frames.

A most recent example is the delay in Urgent Care Clinics. Labor promised 50 Urgent Care Clinics would be established by 30 June this year, including four in Tasmania, with one on the state's North-West Coast.

Senate committee chair says the sale to private equity fund Allegro won’t solve cultural issues at PwC

Bridget Carter and David Ross, The Australian 23 June 2023

The chair of an inquiry examining PwC Australia says moves to sell the firm’s government consulting business, in a deal that could see private equity player Allegro Funds snap up the operation, would not solve broader cultural questions.

Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck, who is chairing the inquiry into the management and assurance of integrity by consulting services, told The Australian the touted sale of PwC’s government operation wouldn’t change facts on the ground.