Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Wednesday 31st August, 2011

Labor knew revenues were crashing in 2008

An explosive leaked diplomatic cable has revealed then Premier David Bartlett told the US Consul-General that Tasmania’s revenues were declining in 2008 ¹, blowing a massive hole in Lara Giddings’ story that it wasn’t until 2011 that revenue issues were discovered.

Today’s revelations show that Labor has sacrificed jobs and services in Tasmania because of years of budget mismanagement. They talk about the ‘hard’ decisions now, but why weren’t they making them when they could have saved Tasmanians so much heartache?

This makes a mockery of Treasurer, Lara Giddings’, claims that former Premier David Bartlett and former Treasurer Michael Aird responded appropriately to the economic situations they were faced with.²

The leaked cable also says that a senior bureaucrat in the Department of Economic Development “there is often a delay between the impact of economic troubles on the "mainland" and the subsequent effects in Tasmania”.

If the Government knew then that future revenues were going to crash, why didn’t they react?

Why instead did the budget Sub-committee, of which Lara Giddings was a member, agree to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the lead up to the 2010 election and then commit to more than $400 million in election promises when they knew the budget position was worsening?

How many frontline teachers, nurses and police officers will lose their job because the Government did nothing when they first knew of crashing revenues?

How many schools, police stations and hospital beds will have to close because Labor can’t manage a budget?

¹ ”According to Tasmania's Premier, David Bartlett (Labor), transactions in the state's real estate market have dropped off. While average home prices have not yet declined, fewer real estate transactions mean fewer taxes, and the Premier noted that this has already begun to hurt state revenue. Bartlett believes that this may be a leading indicator of future economic challenges in the state.” US Consulate Cable, 12 December 2008

² Examiner, 12 February 2011