Dean Winter has been caught out as a pro-privatisation advocate.
After a week of attempting to launch a scare campaign, damning comments have shown Dean Winter's credibility is in tatters.
In an ABC Radio interview on 27 November, 2015, Mr Winter spoke of his pro-privatisation views saying:
"Well. what's.. why does Tasmania own Entura? What's the strategic reason for owning that particular business?"
He goes on to say:
"So we are not in the space anymore at least during this election cycle where we can actually talk about what assets Tasmania should own. There is a whole bunch of areas including Entura but there is also umm for example ummm, umm, Tas Networks.."
On the topic of electricity asset sales, Mr Winter said:
"Research shows Victoria where electricity assets are privatised, they pay less for electricity and that means every single mum and dad business and home pays less."
These comments followed Mr Winter's opinion piece in the Mercury in June 2014, lauding his hero Paul Keating's economic reform agenda.
Mr Winter lamented that in Tasmania politicians are inevitably guilty of taking few risks, shirking difficult decisions and as a consequence, upsetting very few.
"There is little meaningful policy debate," he said.
What sort of policy issues was Mr Winter talking about?
He named up a few: water and sewerage centralisation; voluntary public service redundancy measures; electricity competition; and electricity asset sales!
It's hardly a surprise that many within the union movement attempted to thwart his preselection efforts in 2021.
As reported in the Mercury in 2021, those opposed to Mr Winter's nomination believed he was a supporter of privatisation.
Indeed he is!
It's only a matter of time now before the left faction of the Labor party declare Mr Winter's credibility too big a risk.
