NEWS

TCCI Scorecard State Election 2021

29 April 2021

By Michael Bailey Chief Executive Officer

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has today released its state election scorecard.

TCCI CEO Michael Bailey said both parties had put forward strong agendas for the community to consider.

“Both major parties have committed to supporting the business community and you can see that in their policies,” Mr Bailey said.

“The TCCI looks forward to working with the next government to create jobs, grow the economy and support the COVID recovery.”

The TCCI ranked policies across a range of issues important to the business community.  The scorecard and commentary on each of the major issues is included below.

Taxation: Unfortunately there has been little interest from either party to take on the need for reform of our state taxation system. Labor policies remain silent on taxation and there is only minimal change in the Liberal policies.

Education: Both sides have comprehensive approaches to education reform. For business, an effective TAFE is critical and can only be achieved through reform of the structure to ensure that the institution is more focused on the needs of industry.  While Labor has some solid policies in the education policy area, opposing reform to the structure of TAFE (and incorrectly referring to the reform as “privatisation”) is unhelpful.

Workforce: Both sides acknowledge the need for better planning and management of our local workforce. Reform of TAFE is linked to this. However, both sides have missed the two major handbrakes on our economic performance as a state: participation and productivity. We see limited policies or strategic initiatives to attempt to address these critical areas.

Economy: We have the strongest economy in the nation which has been achieved by solid policy and industry performance. The Liberal plan is to continue to build our way out of COVID including major infrastructure such as Marinus and hydrogen. Two issues that have not been adequately addressed by either side are: how we ensure that the State Budget is sustainable into the future (particularly as the cost of health increases); and how we manage our unfunded government superannuation liability.

Government Contracting: Both Labor and the Liberals have signed the TCCI Charter.

Regional Development: Both parties have a strong commitment to supporting Tasmania’s regions; including the support for industry sectors that are vital in regional Tasmania such as agriculture, tourism, forestry, and aquaculture.