Spruiking debt-free state as poll nears

PREMIER Will Hodgman will pitch his Government’s budget discipline when he addresses business leaders today, telling them the state sector is debt free for the first time ever.

Mr Hodgman will reveal a surplus of more than $800 million across the sector when he delivers his State of the State address.

“For the first time ever, the total state sector — that’s all arms of government, from the departments and agencies right through to the government business enterprises and state-owned companies — is net debt free, with a surplus of over $800 million,” Mr Hodgman has told the Mercury.

“Even accounting for the one-off Mersey Hospital payment, Tasmania is still $81 million in the black.

“No other Tasmanian government has ever achieved that, and it reflects our strong financial management.”

The State Government received $730 million from the Commonwealth in June to fund the Mersey Community Hospital at Latrobe over 10 years.

The Premier will seek to win the support of business and community leaders in the last of his annual speeches for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia before the March election.

An economic turnaround, tourism boom and business confidence will be highlighted after the Government used its final parliamentary sitting week to underline its work on budget repair.

Mr Hodgman told Parliament the Government had wiped $1.1 billion in deficits, helping create 10,000 jobs.

He will talk up the benefits of majority government, with polls suggesting the state could face another hung Parliament.

“The Premier will make a strong case to Tasmania’s business community about the importance of majority government, highlighting that if the government changes, so does the direction of the state,” a Government spokesman said.

While the Premier will highlight the state sector’s overall performance, not all individual government entities are in the black.

Government business enterprise Sustainable Timber Tasmania, formerly Forestry Tasmania, made a $24 million loss last year. The result was an improvement on its $65 million loss in 2015-16.

The Opposition has put the turnaround in the economy down to national and international factors. “They have been fortunate, as all political parties are at different times, of being in a good economic environment,” Labor’s Michelle O’Byrne said yesterday.

“I can’t find a thing that they have done that has substantially changed the economy.”

The Premier would outline how a re-elected Liberal government would continue to work with the business community, the spokesman said.