Dear Editor,
I thought the cartoon by Daze on the 14th November (Story, and Cartoon, HERE) revealed an uncanny understanding of Tasmania’s current situation.
The Auditor General summarised our current situation, not with a cartoon, but with a very revealing graph which he presented to members of Parliament on 22nd November. The message was identical to that of Daze.
The vertical bars show what was supposed to be in the bank, in other words in Special Deposits and Trust Funds or SDTFs.
The straw coloured stuff is the hay missing from the barn, internally borrowed and spent. Note the large increase in 2011.
The remaining blue portion is how much cash is actually in the bank, about $620 million at 30th June 2011. Some of the cash, in fact 68% or $424 million are capital grants from the Australian Government, earmarked for specific purposes such as the RHH.
Hence if the capital grants are excluded, the remaining cash, available for everyday Government operations, is shown by the red line. I guess the Auditor General selected the colour ‘red’ to highlight ‘danger’. The red line is heading downwards at an alarming rate. At 30th June 2011 the figure was $196 million; not enough for one month’s wages.
Neither the Government nor the Liberal Opposition has a viable Plan. Neither fully understand the true situation. Mr Hodgman is as much a babe in the woods as Ms Giddings when it comes to matters of finance.
Not one member of Government or Opposition has bothered to comment on the alarming situation revealed by Mr Blake.
We see a unity Government as the only solution, there’s only enough talent amongst the 40 Parliamentarians for about 6 Ministries. The current plethora of Ministries can be reduced to six plus a couple of Parl Secs. Rotate the Premiership every 2 years, take politics out of the equation, people are just fed up with all the yelling at one another and name calling, and having to listen to their unrealistic solutions based on erroneous understanding of our very serious problems.
Let’s get on with fixing things up before Daze’s prediction comes true.
Keep up the good work.
The Bosun’s Mate
First published: 2011-11-29 04:41 PM
