CHARLES WOOLEY
The latest CommSec State of the States report puts Tasmania third on the Australian economic performance ladder. (Don’t lose interest right away, kiddies, because while this looks serious it borders on the absurd.) CommSec was positively ebullient about our prospects. “In fact the strength on relative population growth, home purchase and construction could see it [Tasmania] battling with NSW and Victoria for top position in the year ahead.”
Now, CommSec is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and is the nation’s biggest online stockbroker.
Historically stockbrokers talk things up until they jump off buildings, or until you do.
Peter Gutwein was running around all week with the closest thing to a smile that you will see on the dial of a state treasurer anywhere. With parliament back in session the government has been crowing. But are we really travelling as well as we are told?
Half our population won’t doubt the veracity of this report because they are unable to read it. Don’t take my word for it. Go to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and look for “functional illiteracy” among Tasmanians aged 15 to 74.
It might cross your mind that if things are so bloody good where is the economic trickle down to fund teaching our kids to read? In a state awash with economic success surely our 50 per cent illiteracy rate could be much reduced inside a decade? Unless of course Tasmanians are fundamentally less intelligent than the rest of Australia or have lousy teachers or perhaps we’re just not all getting a fair suck of the CommSec sauce bottle. I suspect it’s the latter.
We all know there are lies, damned lies, and statistics and therefore some of you might have different ideas about where to file the CommSec gloss-job on the state of our state.
I’m up for us all feeling good about ourselves but as an editorial in this august and generally positive journal (Mercury, July 29) said, “What is lacking in these boom times is the sense that the good fortune is being shared widely.” Relatively high unemployment of about 5 per cent, ramped ambulances, the nation’s longest hospital queues and the worst outcomes in most categories, the lowest wages in the Commonwealth and highest inflation rate, higher smoking and cancer rates, homelessness — Stop me. It’s all too depressing and it goes on and on over almost all socio-economic indicators. I could fill this whole column but the question is,
given the much-celebrated prosperity, whom should we blame for the inequity?
With basic salaries for Tasmanian politicians at about twice the average wage it would be easy to blame them. They do seem out of touch and lacking in much motivation and commitment to actually improve the standard of living for the rest of Tasmania. I suspect, to be fair, they don’t really know where to start because so many of them have never had a real job, like running a small business for instance.
Remember in the Federal sphere how the critics slagged off at Pauline Hanson because she ran a fish and chip shop. Yet it takes a real business skill-set to successfully operate a small food outlet, pay wages and taxes and stay in business. I doubt many Australian pollies could make a go of running a fruit barrow. Without advisers and minders, how would they know you have to sell the banana for more than you paid for it?
Politics is undoubtedly a skill but without real life experience it has little practical application beyond getting yourself reelected into an unreasonably well-paid job.
The real job of running the show is down to the experience of the Public Service. So, when I think over the years of some of the appalling political thick-heads who have been government ministers in this state, I cannot begrudge Tasmanian public servants their salaries. Of course the heads of department should be paid more than the ministers. After all, someone has to run the asylum and keep the lights on.
Another report caught my eye this week. It was from the Australia Institute, an independent Canberra-based think tank. Australian think tanks represent the whole spectrum of politics. The Australia Institute describes itself as “progressive but nonpolitical”. It favours social equity and worries about “environmental neglect”. If only it were a bit more cheeky, mocking and irreverent, but maybe you don’t need to take the piss to deflate the spin-doctored arguments of self-seeking interest lobbies. Perhaps research and truth (at least in some parallel universe) might shed some light and inform public policy. Certainly that’s what the Australia Institute is claiming to do with the publication of a table revealing where the salmon industry actually ranks as an employer in Tasmania. With only 1500 employees, it is to be found between hardware outlets and bakeries and ranked 16th in workplace importance. Like me, I’m sure you’ll be surprised then by how much the tail wags the dog. If only schools (ranked number 1) had such influence.
This controversial report hasn’t had much media coverage yet but it should certainly put a cormorant among the fish.
The Australia Institute report makes the point that salmon gets an unbelievably good deal. The industry was given government subsidies of more than $9 million over the past two years. It pays no council rates on its marine leases and the $923,000 leasing and licence fees it pays annually to the Tasmanian Government is a pittance. In fact the report claims it’s a mere 0.1% (a thousandth) of the total farmgate production for the whole industry, which sold $3.8 billion of fish over the past five years.
Tasmanian politicians, as we considered earlier, generally aren’t successful businessmen and when they are, they don’t stay long. In the case of Big Salmon, the Liberals appear naively seduced into believing it’s all about jobs, which this well sourced research paper shows is not at all the case.
Labor, clearly is not yet ready for government, and on salmon farming as on almost everything else doesn’t have an opinion.
But with the apparent insufficiency of jobs and of fees to the state of Tasmania the Government really should clarify exactly why they have so enthusiastically embraced Big Salmon. Otherwise it might all seem a bit fishy and a bit smelly.
The full Australian Institute report is available to read at www.tai.org.au