Currently, our State Government is faced with the problem of cutting back on spending to bring us back in line with our revenues. We are also coming under more scrutiny because we receive a disproportionate share of the federal GST revenue in comparison to other States. Bluntly this means that Tasmania has benefited from subsidies from the rest of Australia for quite some time. I am a proud Tasmanian and find this level of subsidy quite unacceptable.
I believe Tasmania can support itself and we must take action to achieve that. It is important that we do this now before the rest of Australia imposes these severe changes on us. So why have we needed this extra support?
Firstly, Tasmanians expect and receive a much higher level of service from our State Government than the rest of Australia. For instance, we have 4 major hospitals in Tasmania to service 500,000 people, we continue to increase our road infrastructure throughout the State, sealing roads that were once dirt and we continue to call for increased water, sewer, power and other infrastructure in our regions.
Secondly, we have expanded the role of State Government to include an increasing number of services that lie outside their core such as funding of events and their more intimate involvement in economic development.
This increased demand from our government has grown much faster than our population, which has only increased by 50,000 in the last 20 years, and with no significant increase in taxes. This is why we have needed this extra support from the rest of Australia.
Tasmanians like the benefits of being small, such as reduced road congestion, uncluttered coastlines and reduced pollution, but we expect to have them without any of the drawbacks. We want to be serviced by our State Government equally or better than any other State even though our population is smaller, we simply cannot afford it. We must make a choice.
We have two options, we can increase our State revenues or we can decrease expenditure through a reduction of our level of services. Increased revenue can be achieved by increasing population or through increased taxation and neither of these options are particularly popular. A reduction of expenditure has been attempted by the current Government but it has not worked because they have simply cut budgets across the board whilst expecting each department to continue to deliver the same service.
If we choose to maintain our current level of taxation then we must attempt to reduce the level of services provided by our State Government. This is difficult to achieve from our current position of over servicing because no-one likes to lose a service they once had, so how do we do it?
Rather than a large abrupt change, a combination of rationalisation now and gradual changes to our service delivery plan to Tasmania will be easier to implement and is more likely to be accepted by our community.
We can begin by focusing our Government back on core services – Health, Education, Utilities, Emergency Services and Justice whilst making cuts and reducing our level of services in non-core areas. We can then move on to concentrating our services at population centres were they are most effective and efficient. Finally we can begin planning our communities better so that we do not have this endless demand for increased regional infrastructure. This approach is strategic and gives our departments a clear idea of what it is they are trying to achieve rather than simply asking them to reduce expenditure.
This methodology for a reduction in the level of government expenditure and hence public service does represent significant change and a move away from the extra support from our Government that we as Tasmanians have now become accustomed to. This will be hard for us to swallow as change is difficult, particularly when it is the withdrawal of services and support. However I think we must remember that this change would provide the major benefit of preventing an increase in taxes and it would give us back the pride that we as Tasmanians can run our own show without the need for subsidy from the rest of Australia.
It is time for Tasmanians to remember the benefits and sacrifices we make to live in Tasmania, be realistic and make a choice. If we do not do this, we will never be able to stand on our own two feet.
• James is a 34 year old born and bred Tasmanian raised in the suburbs of Greater Hobart. He graduated from the University of Tasmania as a Mechanical Engineer with Honours in 1998 and was quickly recruited by a mining company to work as an engineer in Broken Hill NSW.
Since then James has worked in Melbourne for an Automotive Company and in Tasmania as a consultant before heading overseas in 2002 on a journey that was to last for 3 years. During this time James based himself in the UK working various jobs outside engineering including hospitality and sales. He travelled through Europe, Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, Africa and Southeast Asia.
In 2005, after gaining a greater understanding of the world from his travels, James moved back to Tasmania and began work for Pitt & Sherry as an industrial engineering consultant and has worked there ever since. His work at Pitt & Sherry has exposed him to multiple areas of private industry and government infrastructure including manufacturing, mining, water and waste handling. Most of his roles have been in design or construction management with extensive interaction with government bodies. As a result, James has gained significant direct experience of how government participates in the economy.
Since moving back home to Tasmania in 2005 James has settled in Hobart and become a first home buyer. His passion for Tasmania has grown over the years and he would now like to take action to resolve some of the problems he has seen and help Tasmania stay the best place to live in the world. To do this, James has chosen to run for Legislative Council in his home town of Hobart.
