Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Wednesday 27th January 2010

Access Economics says business to be hit hard

Today’s Access Economics Business Outlook paints a gloomy picture for Tasmania.

While the rest of Australia is seeing a return to strong growth, Tasmania is lagging. Business investment in Tasmania is predicted to go backwards until at least 2012-13, while the real estate market is set to take a hit.

These two factors alone are enough to see the Tasmanian economy continue to slide compared to other Australian economies. However, there are far more damaging revelations in the Outlook.

Access Economics states that:

Tasmania is more reliant on selling to Japan and Asia’s Tigers than it is on selling to China itself. That means it is missing much of the good news that has helped to keep the home fires burning in the rest of Australia. Export sales are therefore weak, and that combination is starting to hurt jobs as well, with the unemployment rate climbing.

Just days before this report came out, the Government sent David Llewellyn to shore up Tasmanian markets in Japan. I find it strange that given the effort to talk to the Japanese, Mr Llewellyn wouldn’t have made at least a brief visit to China to investigate opportunities and establish networks.

This really is one of the clearest signs that the Government has run out of puff. They can’t see that the world is changing, that we need to engage with China and that we need to change our export strategies as well. Instead the Government is doing things the same way as it always has and the result is that our exports are falling and our unemployment rate is climbing.

A Hodgman Liberal Government would immediately invest more in developing our export capacity and helping Tasmanian products to break into new markets. We need real change if we are going to reverse this trend and create the kind of future our children deserve.