The Liberals are offering Tasmanians hope and giving them reason to be optimistic about the future by addressing cost of living pressures.

Our Roadmap to Recovery and Growth demonstrates the Liberals commitment to keeping costs down for Tasmanians across the spectrum, including on electricity, water and sewerage, car registration and owning a home.

The Liberals will hand back the unfair carbon tax – making Tasmania the only place in Australia where consumers do not have to pay carbon tax on their electricity.

Combined with the Energy Reform proposals we support, which provide a further 12 per cent reduction in power price increases, under a majority Liberal Government electricity price increases will be the lowest in the country, saving households and small businesses more than $300 a year.

The Liberals will also do away with the current moves to impose additional costs for motor registration.

We will make it cheaper to buy or build a first home through a stamp duty concession of $1,000 for purchase and $2,000 for building a first home.

For first home builders, we will also provide a grant of $7000 to assist people to build and own a home.

We will also merge the water and sewerage corporations, thereby putting downward pressure on prices.

Our Roadmap to Recovery and Growth offers Tasmanians hope – hope that the cost of living do not need to keep spiralling as it has been. The Liberals offer Tasmanians an opportunity to keep the lid on cost of living pressures and balance the household budget.

*Source – RACT MR 17 May 2012.

Will Hodgman is Leader of the Opposition

The Liberals’ Roadmap to Recovery and Growth is all about providing Tasmanians with hope and optimism for the future.  It identifies nearly half a billion in savings and revenue measures which will be used to grow the economy and create jobs, deliver essential services and ease the cost of living.

These savings have been identified by reprioritising non-essential spending, getting rid of luxuries we can no longer afford, and maintaining our focus on a smaller and more efficient public service.

An efficient public service

The Liberals remain committed to the overall reduction in public sector positions of 1700 FTEs.

Health, education and police and public safety will be quarantined from further frontline cuts.

Department of State Growth

A majority Hodgman Liberal Government will create more efficient service delivery structures.

Tasmania can no longer afford to sustain nine stand-alone Departments.

We will merge the Department of Economic Development with the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources.

To be known as the Department of State Growth, this new department will have oversight of the key economic drivers of our state like infrastructure, energy, resources – including forestry and mining, economic development and tourism.

With Tasmania in recession and unemployment at a decade high it is clear a new approach is needed to ensure these main economic drivers are refocused onto the task at hand of rebuilding our economy, in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Savings through prioritizing spending

The Liberals will cut spending in less essential areas in order to properly fund essential services like health, education and public safety.

Spending reductions will occur in the following areas:

• 10 Days on the Island

• Ministerial Limousines

• The Government car fleet

• Boards and Committees

• Tasmania Together Board and process

• Passenger Transport Innovation

• Metro Park and Ride

• The Social Inclusion Unit

• Sirolli Enterprises Facilitation

• Climate Council

• Integrity Commission efficiency

The Liberals’ Roadmap to Recovery and Growth is not only fiscally responsible, it provides Tasmanians with hope for a better future. With initiatives to stimulating economic growth and jobs, we will create the wealth to better fund essential services and ease the cost of living.

Will Hodgman is Leader of the Opposition

The Liberals’ Roadmap to Recovery and Growth offers Tasmanians hope for the future – under a majority Liberal Government, essential services in health, education and public safety will be the highest priority.

By reprioritising nearly half a billion dollars in non-essential spending, stimulating the economy and putting vital services first, the Liberals will ensure that Tasmanians have access to the services they deserve, when they need them.

Elective surgery is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. The Liberals will invest an additional $76 million over four years to ensure Tasmanians have the surgery they need. This will enable up to 15,000 extra elective operations in our hospitals.

Restoring elective surgery funding is an investment in the health and wellbeing of Tasmanians, many of whom are suffering as a result of the current cuts.

As well as investing in health, the Liberals will continue to protect other vital services including in education and public safety.

We will quarantine frontline health, education and police from cuts and we will prioritise the services they provide to Tasmanians.

Only the Liberal party can deliver the vital services that Tasmanians need – our Roadmap to Recovery and Growth offers the hope and opportunity Tasmanians need to turn the state around.

Will Hodgman is Leader of the Opposition

Tasmania’s kick in the guts from the Federal Budget is final confirmation that we need to throw away the begging bowl and instead focus on strengthening our economy and making Tasmania more self-reliant.

We’ll never get our fair share of Federal funding unless we actually do more to help ourselves – grow our economy, grow jobs, and stop shutting down pillar industries like forestry, as Labor and the Greens are doing.

A majority Hodgman Liberal Government has an economic blueprint for a more self-reliant Tasmania.

We will invest in and grow the five Pillars of Tasmania’s future economy in order to generate the wealth and prosperity needed to create jobs and properly fund essential services and jobs.

We’ll implement a single state-wide planning scheme, and ban frivolous third-party appeals, to encourage development, and we’ll extend our High Schools to Year 12, to improve productivity.

By growing the economy, instead of shrinking it like Labor and the Greens, we can once again proudly stand on our own two feet, and break the habit of constantly expecting bail-outs from others.

Will Hodgman is Leader of the Opposition

Today, Will Hodgman officially released the Liberals’ Future Directions 3 – Delivering the Essential Business of Government.

This important directions document outlines how a majority Liberal Government will refocus the State Service on the essential services Tasmanians expect and deserve – health, education, public safety, and critical infrastructure.

In Government we will cut the luxuries Labor and the Greens have allowed to blow out, and instead refocus taxpayer funds on providing the essentials.

It is about having the right size public service that Tasmania can afford, and that delivers for Tasmanians.

Labor and the Greens have wrecked the budget with the Premier admitting a $1 billion over-spend, which means we no longer have funding to spend on the less essential aspects of Government business.

We need to cut our cloth to suit the times.

However, unlike Labor and the Greens, we won’t be sacking frontline staff in areas such as health, education, and public safety.

For example, we will put doctors and nurses before the state architect, teachers before wi-fi on buses and police officers before $40 million a year on consultants.

We value the important work public servants do, and in Government we will look to establish a true working partnership with them.

While the Liberals will take a strong suite of policies to the next election which we expect the state service to implement, we also understand that public servants have a lot of expertise and ideas of their own.

From day one, we will listen to and formally engage with all – from the mailroom to management, on ways to increase efficiencies and provide better service delivery to Tasmanians.

A majority Liberal Government will also:

• Investigate amalgamating backroom corporate functions where sensible to do so (such as IT) in order to drive further efficiencies
• Bring decision making back to Government by reducing the number of unelected boards and consultancies.
• Create a sustainable public sector by putting in place measures to avoid unchecked blow-outs in the size and cost of the public sector

To review our Future Directions statements click here.