On Monday, a leading economist gave a pretty dire warning about the state of Tasmania’s finances — but within hours, both major political parties had ruled out implementing its main recommendations.
The economist projected Tasmania was on track to be in the worst financial position in the country over the next three years, and in a decade’s time would be paying $710 million a year — just shy of the estimated cost of the extremely contentious Hobart AFL stadium — just in interest.
And he found the state’s journey towards the top of the fiscal cliff was caused entirely by government decisions.
It caused a fair bit of alarm, especially among the three Jacqui Lambie Network MPs who pushed for the report as part of the party’s deal with the government.
But the major parties did not take long to reject enacting the economist’s preferred solution.