Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution on a matter of public interest in respect of my home state of Tasmania and the dire economic situation that that state is in, principally because of the reckless economic management of the current Tasmanian government, dominated by the influence of Green policy and the devastating effect that that is having on the economy of my home state. We have seen very recently the statistics around the economy of Tasmania, which effectively ranks at the bottom of almost every economic indicator. Earlier in the day, Senator Birmingham painted a very graphic picture of the situation of the state of South Australia, which again unfortunately is under the poor economic management of a Labor government at the moment, but Tasmania, under the combined influence of Labor and the Greens, unfortunately is at the bottom of the pile. That situation needs to be rectified and it needs to be changed.

Just in the last week or so, we have seen, as is often the case with Labor governments, the poor management of the economy and the state budget impacting on Tasmania. When the budget was released last year, there was a projected deficit of $267 million, which is a significant budget deficit in the Tasmanian context. When the economic forecast was updated last week or the week before, for the election which is to be held in 10 days time, that budget deficit had grown by more than $100 million. It sounds a bit familiar. It sounds like what happened here in Canberra over recent years, where a budget surplus was promised and a budget deficit was delivered, or a budget deficit was promised but a bigger budget deficit was actually delivered. In fact, in six years there was not a budget surplus delivered, as many of us predicted during our contributions in this place. The economy actually declined in Tasmania by 0.75 per cent in the last year 2012-13. The Labor Premier, quite heroically, is now predicting two per cent growth in the next financial year. That might occur, but it could be predicated on only one thing—that is, a change of government with the removal of the combined influence of the Labor Party and the Greens from the Tasmanian economy. It is well established that Labor are not good economic managers, and the statistics continue to demonstrate that.

We see that Tasmania has got the lowest GDP per head in our country. It declined by 0.75 per cent in 2012-13, coming off meagre growth of 1.6 per cent in 2011-12. Tasmania has the lowest life expectancy in the country, except for the Northern Territory. It has the lowest educational attainments in the country and it has the highest unemployment. The new government has an aspiration to bring Tasmania's unemployment rate down to the national average. At least a new Liberal government under the leadership of Will Hodgman may have a chance of doing that.

In Tasmania we have seen over recent years Labor and the Greens combining to pay businesses to close down. How on earth are you going to get economic growth in a circumstance where you are actually paying businesses to shut up shop, where you are winding back on industries and businesses in the state? How is that going to promote economic growth? It will not. It cannot.