THE push factor of the GFC and the pull factor of a mining boom have laid bare Tasmania’s underlying structural and cultural weaknesses.
Tasmania can either call in Jeff Kennett as administrator or finally embrace genuine reform.
Here are some obvious places to start: streamline local government and planning regulation. A state of 511,000 cannot justify 29 councils, 36 planning schemes and 281 local councillors. If councils continue to refuse to amalgamate, the issue must be forced.
Appoint an independent razor gang to restructure the state bureaucracy, retaining core services and shedding others to the non-government and private sectors. Tasmania cannot afford to spend almost half its budget on public service salaries.
Stop trying to pick winners via grants and subsidies to inefficient sectors. Redirect these funds to slashing business taxes to stimulate the private sector, allowing the market to pick the winners.
The rest lies behind the paywall
• The Guardian, via A Reader:
What do Sicily and Tasmania have in common? … Island, ferries, too many councillors and polies, government money for jobs, living beyond its means and a large forestry department – A Reader
Tom Kington, Palermo, guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 July 2012 11.50 BST via A Reader
Fears over Sicily’s future as euro flow stops and bankruptcy looms
A bleak combination of routine corruption, misused funds and mafia influence is taking the beautiful, troubled island to the brink of the abyss
As Andrea Vecchio heads down the corridor from his office in Palermo, two men parked behind a desk doing nothing leap to their feet to salute him. But Sicily’s new assessor for infrastructure is not impressed. “Just look around,” he exclaims. “No one here is doing any work at all.”
Vecchio, a sprightly, grey-bearded entrepreneur and tough anti-mafia campaigner, has been drafted in to slice through Sicily’s public-works red tape and tackle its idle hordes of civil servants, but even he may be too late to save the sun-drenched island’s economy.
Long renowned for its sultry beauty and deadly mafia bosses, Sicily has now been dubbed “Italy’s Greece”, an island awash with misspent EU funds, state jobs traded for votes and a €5bn debt pile that some fear could push Italy’s delicate economy into the abyss. Union and business leaders last week implored the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, to take control of Sicily’s disastrous local finances and, after credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded the island, Monti himself warned Sicily could default.
“Something has finally snapped here, it’s the end of an era,” said Maurizio Bernava, head of the CISL union in Sicily, who claims that pay cheques for transport and refuse collection workers could dry up within months.
“Sicily is on the brink of collapsing, with the risk that we won’t be able to pay salaries or even run ferries from the island,” said Vecchio.
A cash injection of €400m (£311m) from Rome allayed fears of imminent meltdown, but Sicily continues to pay about 144,000 regional staff, nurses, consultants and temporary workers, including around 26,000 forestry workers – more than British Columbia in Canada – many working limited hours and holding down second jobs.
Full-time office staff total 20,000, one for every 239 inhabitants compared with one for every 2,500 in the northern region of Lombardy, while public officials treat themselves to top wages, notably former waste boss Felice Crosta, who retired on a €500,000 annual pension.
The problem is called clientelismo – handing out jobs in return for votes, a practice that has proliferated since Sicily was granted autonomous status in 1946. “The habit of hiring scores of temporary staff, who will then vote for you in the hope of winning a permanent post, is shameful,” said Vecchio. The current governor, Raffaele Lombardo, has promised to end the practice and has hired reformers such as Vecchio to flush out loafers, but the jury is still out on his efforts. “Lombardo sees the times are changing, but has the same Christian Democrat background as his predecessors and has quietly been busy hiring dozens of consultants,” said Enrico Del Mercato, co-author of La Zavorra, which lifted the lid on Sicily’s civil service.
