Jeremy Rockliff has admitted he’s bankrupting Tasmania while also proving that he still has no serious plan to turn the situation around.

When the Liberals came to office there was zero net debt, and money in the bank. On Jeremy Rockliff’s watch, Tasmania will soon have more than $10 billion of debt and a budget deficit four times worse than at the height of COVID – a time when money was basically being shovelled out the door.

The Premier’s latest plan to address his own mess – a blanket hiring freeze he’s outsourcing to unelected bureaucrats – is a lazy and inefficient policy that won’t go close to repairing the damage he and his government have inflicted over 11 years.

He couldn’t say how much it would save – embarrassingly choosing to retreat to his seat rather than answering the questions. He couldn’t say which roles he considers to be “non-essential”.

The only thing the Premier did reveal was that he’s looking to restore things to pre-Rockliff levels.

Without detail this is nothing more than empty commitment to undo his own mismanagement, and an admission that he is the architect of Tasmania’s budget mess.

Josh Willie MP
Shadow Treasurer