State stacks up but two big issues remain

TASMANIA has many cornerstones of a much larger place, but two big-ticket items remain to be ticked off the list, demographer Bernard Salt says.

In research commissioned by the Mercury for the Future Tasmania series, Hobart and Tasmania compared favourably with similar and largersized Australian centres.

Checklist comparisons were made between greater Hobart (population 233,000) and the Gold Coast (680,000), Newcastle (487,000), Canberra (458,000), the Sunshine Coast (333,000), Wollongong (303,000) and Geelong (268,000).

The regional centres were marked on the presence or absence of a university, CSIRO agency, airport, local TV production and military base, with greater Hobart boasting all of these bar the military base.

The Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Wollongong, for example, are larger than Hobart but do not have a CSIRO presence. And Wollongong lacks an airport.

“There’s a lot of benefit in Tassie’s size and island status,’’ Mr Salt said. “I think there is a gravitas in Tasmania being a separate state, the excitement of being an island.

“It is geographically interesting, it has an interesting and colourful past. All these factors make it an interesting and engaging destination.”

Mr Salt said there was an advantage for Tasmania in being smaller and slowergrowing than larger cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, in being an attractive option to mainlanders.

“The argument is the big

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ger, the vaster and more congested [the place is], the more expensive it is,’’ he said.

Mr Salt said there are two critical elements currently missing in Tasmania – international flights and the state’s own AFL team.

“An international airport is absolutely crucial, as much for community pride and independence as much as the issue of sovereignty,’’ he said.

“And a football team is absolutely critical, I would have thought.”

Mr Salt said Tasmania over many years had provided talented players to the mainland competition and deserved a team to call its own.

International flights in and out of Hobart are on the agenda for state and federal governments as part of the $1.6 billion Hobart City Deal.

An implementation plan released this month outlined a vision for international flights to start by the end of next year.

The establishment of border services, including an Australian Federal Police presence at the airport, are expected to be operational at the site earlier in 2020.

In a survey of Mercury readers in the Future Tasmania survey, 56 per cent of respondents supported the idea of Tasmania having its own team in the AFL.

A State Government taskforce behind the state’s AFL bid is building a business case that is expected to be presented to the league by the end of this year.

Recently, the case for a team was strengthened when a significant milestone was reached, with 50,000 people signing up to a pledge campaign under the United We Stand banner.