Tasmania slides to last as Abetz cuts jobs and services

Today’s State of the States report shows Tasmania is experiencing an unprecedented economic and fiscal storm. 

We have not seen job losses like this since the global financial crisis. But unlike that period, when economies across the country were slowing, Tasmania is now going backwards while other states continue to grow.

Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in Australia at 5.1 per cent.

Employment has fallen by 1.3 per cent over the past year, making Tasmania the only state or territory to record a net decline in jobs.

We now rank last overall and in the bottom two nationally on four of the report’s six indicators.

When Tasmania performed well in this report, the Liberals repeatedly said it proved their economic plan was working.

By their own test, today’s result proves their plan is failing.

After 13 years, the Liberals have left Tasmania with the worst-performing economy in the country, rising unemployment, spiralling debt, and a downgraded credit rating.

They have sold out Tasmanian industries and workers, failed to protect jobs, and now they are taking an axe to their own public sector workforce.

Rather than deliver a genuine plan for economic growth, Eric Abetz has reached for a blunt $1.5 billion fiscal cleaver.

To pay the interest bill on 13 years of Liberal waste and debt, he is axing around 1,700 public sector jobs and stripping hundreds of millions of dollars from health, education, and essential services.