Hello, I trust that you find this update on Turn Tasmania Around, the budget and other matters helpful.

Turn Tasmania Around

On the 8th and 9th of November the State Liberal Shadow Cabinet will be in the north of the State as a part of our Turn Tasmania Around program of door knocking and meetings with local communities right across Tasmania. Recently we met in the South and two weeks ago held similar meetings on the North West Coast.

Our purpose is to give all Tasmanians an opportunity to provide us with feedback on the matters and issues that are important to them. So far the feedback has been very positive towards this program and I have to say the overwhelming view of those that we have engaged with has been the need for an election to get rid of this unstable minority government that has so obviously lost its way.

On the evening of the 8th of November there is a Gala cocktail party at the Hotel Grand Chancellor and if you would like to attend and haven’t as yet received an invitation please contact my assistant Jenny on 6336 2671 for details.

Budget update

There is no doubt that the Tasmanian Governments budget is in a parlous state. The Government’s overspending in recent years by more than $1Billion, exacerbated by the flawed policy to turn Tasmania into a national park through collapsing the forestry industry, means that we have many challenges to face up to. The Government has chosen to slash health spending, mark schools for closure and reduce our police service numbers to cut spending in the budget. We do not agree with this strategy and quite frankly believe that the Governments priorities are wrong in going down this path.

Whilst we accept that Government spending must be reigned in we believe that the core business of a state Government is the provision of health, education and police and public safety and therefore, we have said that we would protect the frontline services that these agencies provide. Our position very simply is that we would cut non essential areas of Government to ensure that these essential services could still be provided.

We have outlined almost $200Million of alternative savings in the alternative budget which is available on my web site: www.petergutwein.com . These savings are available to this Green Labor Government right now if they wanted to adopt them. We believe that before we slash elective surgery or sack nurses, shut schools or stop hiring police recruits that non essential areas such as the Tas Together project, the fox taskforce, some of the 200 boards and committees that are funded from the public purse, wifi and bike racks on metro buses or the state architect should go first.

Our fiscal priorities very clearly are ensuring that we manage the budget responsibly and bring it back into surplus whilst at the same time protecting the front line services in health, education and police and public safety that all Tasmanians need.

My speeches and press statements are all available on www.petergutwein.com if you wish to read what I have been saying on the economy and other important matters of policy.

Reference Web Site: http://www.petergutwein.com/

Forestry Industry

I believe that many people for the first time are just beginning to wake up to the importance of the forestry industry to our broader economy. The disastrous restructuring of this industry being foisted upon the State by Labor and the Greens has lead to an erosion of confidence, massive job losses and dislocation for many families as bread winners head interstate or onto welfare as their only resort.

The compensation package for contractors and workers we have supported because they have been the pawns in this disgraceful politically motivated action by Labor and the Greens. What we do not support and will not agree to is the locking up of more than 572,000 ha of working forests which will cut the industry in half, deny future potential investment and savagely affect regional and rural communities.

Triabunna remains closed and unfortunately many forest workers and their families are now heading interstate to find work that we should have available here in this State. If anyone from the industry wants to get in contact or needs assistance please contact me directly on either 6336 2671 or on email: peter.gutwein@parliament.tas.gov.au .

Contact: Peter Gutwein

Unemployment in Tasmania

I understand that many of you will unfortunately know firsthand how difficult it is to either employ people or conversely find work at the moment. However our unemployment rate the Government tells us is at a very low 5% and the jobs market is strong. I would like to explain how this artificially low rate is masking the underlying ‘real’ unemployment rate.

The first point that must be made is that in the period since February when Lara Giddings became Premier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics informs us that more than 2100 jobs have been lost yet our unemployment rate remains low. These are real jobs lost during the last 8 months. The reason the unemployment rate doesn’t reflect these job losses is because our participation rate, which is the percentage of people actually either in work or actively looking for work, has fallen dramatically to where it is now around 10% below the national average (Tas 60.1%-Aust 66% ABS).

What this means is that as people are losing their jobs they are either leaving the state or simply giving up looking for jobs which aren’t there. If we had the same participation rate as the rest of the country our unemployment rate would be around 12%- more than double the Australian rate.

Unfortunately what most of us understand to be the case - that is the economy has slowed and jobs aren’t being created is absolutely what is occurring and the only thing that is keeping the unemployment rate at an artificially low level is the fact that people have given up looking for work or are heading interstate for jobs in states with stronger economies.

The Liberals plan

We have already announced a number of policies that are designed to reboot our economy, create jobs and lower the cost of living. We have announced that we would:

1. Restructure the water and sewerage corporations and collapse the four boards and their corporate structures into one statewide corporation to reduce costs and increase investment.
2. Introduce completion into the retail electricity market to put downward pressure on prices and increase the service levels of retailers.
3. Reduce red tape and regulation with a ’one on, two off’ policy to actually drive downwards the amount of regulation and red tape that businesses must deal with.
4. Introduce a statewide residential and commercial planning code so that red tape is reduced and investment bottlenecks can be avoided.

These and the other policies we have already announced are available in detail by following the link to The Hon Will Hodgman’s website.

Reference Web Site: http://www.willhodgman.com.au/

Thank you for taking the time to read this update and as always if you want to discuss any matter with me please feel free to either email me on peter.gutwein@parliament.tas.gov.au or call my office on 6336 2671.

Regards

Peter Gutwein MP