The underlying problems are twofold.
1. Tasmania is almost obsessed with central planning and “all eggs in the one basket” approaches. Simply reading the comments here are proof enough in themselves – many of them are simply ideas for centrally planned outcomes rather than an actual open mind.
2. Tasmania’s central planning is notoriously slow to adapt. For example:
We had an advantage through hydro-electricity which peaked in economic usefulness in the late 1960’s and had become irrelevant by the late 1970’s. It was another 25 *years* until we finally gave up on ideas of new smelters and the like.
We had an advantage in the pulp / paper industry but failed to modernise, sitting back whilst the north-west paper industry slowly fell apart over an extremely long timeframe of literally 30 years. There were opportunities to invest, but we chose to export woodchips instead until that too fell in a heap.
We had an advantage in tourism which peaked in economic usefulness in the late 00’s. We are still flogging that dead horse today.
The problem isn’t energy, forestry or tourism. The problem is cargo cult central planning putting all faith in whatever is the latest great hope.
It is perhaps worth noting that past successes were not themselves intentional.
The Hydro came about due to the vision of a few individuals – at first government wanted nothing to do with it.
The paper industry was much the same. It came about due to a few individuals and struggled to get going.
So too tourism came about due to the actions of various people. Nobody sat around a table and planned that we’d have this, that and something else to bring the tourists in. It just happened one piece at a time.
Likewise any future high tech or other industries will not come about because a group of bureaucrats sit around a table and come up with the idea. It will come about because somebody realises the potential for PROFIT and takes the RISK of making it happen. That’s how just about everything else got started.
The other key difference between Tasmania and Estonia is that the latter does not have a habit of inventing artificial “problems” as an excuse not to do things.
90% of electricity in Estonia is produced from burning oil shale. If that were in Tasmania, we’d have someone arguing that the “dirty power” would in some way prevent the development of an IT industry. That is an excuse of course, akin to arguing that the presence of St David’s Cathederal in Hobart in some way prevents us having MONA since those who are religious might object to some of the art on display, but it’s the “all or nothing” way many seem to think.
Regulate where appropriate (safety, environment, wages etc) but otherwise just let entrepreneurs get on with it and stop the central planning nonsense which holds Tasmania back.
