Last month the Tasmanian Premier, Lara Giddings, gave a speech at the National Press Club. I thought I’d post it here in case anyone is interested in watching it. It runs for an hour so you’ll need to set aside some time for it. You can find it here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-20/national-press-club-lara-giddings/4530084
She has an interesting point at 23:00 and it was nice to see her get enthusiastic with the same point at 43:00. I’ve never seen Lara Giddings pushing a point and being enthusiastic about it. Why doesn’t she do that more? If only she could be as inspiring here for us in her own State as she was at the Press Club address.
There are some interesting major ideas and initiaitves that she mentions in her address. When you’re a normal person living in Tamania and don’t have a personal connection or personal interest in any of these projects and initiatives that are in planning or underway you aren’t necessarily made aware of them. Perhaps that’s a flaw with our local news agencies not reporting on things that are important (other than the daily barrage we get about the forestry dispute/agreement which I think ordinary Tasmanians are getting sick of hearing about every day). Or perhaps it’s a flaw with the way that the government communicates. In any event, ordinary Tasmanians should know about these things, in my opinion. (Well, okay, we just need to know that the Premier isn’t swanning around in Canberra and attending events, openings, community fundraisers, bbqs and dinners all the time and never doing any important Premier work :) ). Okay, back to being serious now, she does make a good point about the flow of information and communication in reply to a question at 56:00.
The question was asked a few different ways by a few different people and she did answer the question in a round-a-bout way but just how the Premier intends to get all the initiatives and projects she mentions in her address underway remains to be seen. You need money to do those things and this State does not have money. It sounds like a case of the chicken and the egg. That’s just my simpleton opinion.
Last week the Premier gave her State of the State address, which contained a lot of what she mentioned in the National Press Club address. You can read the transcript of her State of the State address here:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/03/05/373849_tasmania-news.html
On a separate (but sort of related) note, last week Will Hodgman (the leader of the opposition here in Tasmania) announced in his State of the State address (found here: http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1346046/will-hodgmans-state-of-the-state-address/?cs=12) that he wanted to get more young people into Tasmania and wanted to grow the population of Tasmania from 500,000 currently to 650,000 by 2050. The Mercury reported on the population issue here:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/03/03/373690_tasmania-news.html
I’m not sure that his vision of a “Big Tasmania” is realistic, considering that Tasmania’s population has never been what you might call “stable”, least of all “growing”. Even though there might be more stable population figures recently than has been in the past, there are always major spikes over the duration of time where the population of Tasmania decreases. With such unpredictable population movements I think Will Hodgman might be constantly running after the carrot if population growth is something that he is going to pursue.
Will Hodgman wants to get skilled young people into the State but, again, in my opinion it’s a case of the chicken and the egg. I don’t believe it’s complete doom and gloom having an old or ageing population here in Tasmania – many of the people that retire from the mainland to Tasmania are self-funded, they own their house and they can pay their way. Perhaps the best way to increase the population of Tasmania is to offer immigrants incentives against (or putting restrictions on) moving to heavily populated (overcrowded) areas of Sydney or Melbourne to move into rural areas of Australia, including into Tasmania.
I was contacted by a reporter for the ABC show “7:30 Tasmania” and asked to do an interview on the topic of people moving from the mainland into Tasmania. My interview unfortunately didn’t go ahead but the report, entitled “On the Move”, aired last week and I found it quite interesting, hopefully you might too. You can watch it here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-08/on-the-move/4562082
In reality, in order to get young people moving to Tasmania you need to offer them more than just the promise of a better lifestyle, space, green pastures and fresh air. People can’t live on those things. They need a reliable job and they need to be able to pay their bills. Unlike Tim and I, not all unretired people from the mainland have equity and savings that they can rely on.
To attract young people you need good stable jobs, to get stable jobs you need stable industries, to get stable industries you need investment, to get investment you need money. Chickens and eggs …
Edited to add: Last night on the TV news it was announced that the Premier is terminating a program which aims to help juvenile offenders and wayward youth learn about auto mechanics. The program will be stopped to save the Government money. I just really think that this type of stuff – closing schools, cutting police officer numbers, cutting important programs like the auto mechanics program - should not happen. Until the base level ground works are in place in this State no one should be thinking about building a “Big Tasmania”.
