Michael Ferguson,Minister for Finance
The global coronavirus economic downturn is no time for petty politics and Labor should be ashamed.
At the very time Tasmanians need to have each other’s backs and work together to restore confidence, Labor’s David O’Byrne is seeking ways to knock it.
The fact is no jurisdiction in Australia will escape the global coronavirus impact, but it is how we respond that matters.
The record speaks for itself – Tasmania’s economy, prior to the pandemic in March 2020, was the envy of the nation, leading across a raft of performance indicators. This included leading annual jobs growth and the fastest growing economy in the country.
The Tasmanian Liberal Government went into this pandemic with a strong balance sheet and compared to other states, our forecast net debt is comparatively low.
In fact, we were one of the only jurisdictions that had net cash and investments as opposed to net debt before the pandemic hit, which is contrary to Mr O’Byrne’s assertion that “money has been frittered away”.
This demonstrates Mr O’Byrne obviously can’t read financial reports and Labor is deliberately misleading Tasmanians rather than supporting them at a time when we should be all working together.
We fixed the budget and economic mess left by Labor when we came to Government in 2014, and we will rebuild our economy again.
We have the plan and the actions to do this. We will undertake the most aggressive construction program in the state’s history and build our way out and back.
We will create jobs and generate state-based revenue sources to fuel our economy.
The Tasmanian Liberal Government knows the best way to help Tasmanians is to build a strong economy. Not just talk it down like David O’Byrne.
