Economy
Bartlett hints at project boom, as McKim moves and shakes
PREMIER David Bartlett has flagged massive investment projects for the state due to be revealed in the first half of 2011.
Mr Bartlett said he could not discuss details of the confidential projects but hinted they were focused on renewable energy, dairy industry processing and mineral resources.
But he said he did not know if construction of the $2.2 billion Gunns pulp mill was imminent.
“One thing I’ve learnt over the last 2-1/2 years [as Premier] is not to predict that sort of thing,” Mr Bartlett laughed.
“I don’t have a strong view one way or another.”
He said his Government’s focus in 2011 would be entirely on ensuring job security and, where possible, reducing cost-of-living pressures on ordinary Tasmanians.
In an interview with the Mercury before going on leave, Mr Bartlett said he accepted many Tasmanians thought too much political time and energy since the March state election had been taken up with “bedding down” the new Labor Government with its two Greens ministers.
He conceded he had not done a good job in selling the practical benefits of his economic vision for the state to ordinary Tasmanians, many of whom think it is all just about fine food and expensive wine.
In 2011 he hoped to move his “vision” for a new Tasmania into a more practical sphere, to explain better how his new economic direction focusing on irrigation, food bowls, renewable energy and high-speed broadband translates to real jobs and greater wealth and prosperity for all.
He does not agree 2011 is looming as a particularly difficult and tough economic year, citing the 2500 local jobs created in the past eight months.
The only thing missing was business confidence in the private sector and individual confidence in the working population that their jobs were safe.
And,
Meanwhile …
Nick McKim
REENS leader and government minister Nick McKim is the Mercury’s No. 1 Tasmanian Newsmaker for 2010.
It was the year Mr McKim became the first Greens politician in Australia to be appointed a government minister.
It was Mr McKim, 45, who also effectively determined whether the incumbent Labor Government or the Liberal Opposition won power after the knife-edge March 20 election delivered a hung parliament of 10 Labor MPs, 10 Liberals and five Greens.
The rise of the Greens to the balance of power in Tasmania will also go down in history as a turning point for the party Australia-wide as a mainstream political force.
…
In the eight months since, Mr McKim’s stamp has been on almost every political outcome and decision made in Tasmania, whether post-year 10 schooling changes, forests, the National Broadband Network, prison revamps, energy inquiries or food bowl initiatives.
Along with Mr Bartlett, he has also been responsible for changing the style and face of Tasmanian politics, particularly in Parliament, to one which appears more open and less adversarial.
The friendship and political bond between the two leaders has also become extremely close.
They text each other daily and meet regularly for coffee, bike rides and policy discussions.
Some even claim the Premier has become so dependent on Mr McKim’s intellectual input that the Greens leader is the real powerhouse of government decision-making and policy.