Tasmania’s 2022/23 state budget analysed
Our political experts have run their eyes over the state budget and declared the winners and losers as well as analysed key areas including health, education, housing, transport and tourism. BUDGET DEEP DIVE>>>
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Our political experts have run their eyes over the state budget and declared the winners and losers as well as analysed key areas including health, education, housing, transport and tourism.
THE BOTTOM LINE (2022/23)
REVENUE: $7.84bln.
EXPENDITURE: $8.32bln
DEFICIT: $474m
DEBT: $2.9bln
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 4.5 per cent
ECONOMIC GROWTH: 2.25 per cent
WINNERS AND LOSERS
WINNERS:
- Derwent Ferry users, with $19 million over four years to continue Bellerive-Hobart ferries
Schools. The state government is spending $250 million on school infrastructure over the forward estimate.
- Civil contractors. Big spending on roads and bridges continues, with $712m to be spent next year.
- Staff and patients in the state’s hospitals, with $150 million to modernise IT systems. The Australian Medical Association has says the investment will revolutionise healthcare in Tasmania.
LOSERS:
- Public servants seeking a pay rise. The state government is offering 2.5 per cent per year. The public sector union says this amounts to a wage cut with inflation at 5.8 per cent.
- Also schools. The education union says schools are suffering teacher shortages and the budget makes no effort to address this.
- People desperate for housing. The Greens and Shelter Tasmania are concerned promised new affordable homes cannot be delivered quickly enough.
- Future governments responsible for paying off the state’s debt, which will rise to 5.2 billion by 2026.
HEALTH
The state government is boasting a health “game-changer” in this year’s budget, with a funding commitment for digital health.
Over 10 years, the government will spend an initial $150m on digital health, $30m in the 2022/23 period to improve facilities at the four major hospitals, rural health services and community health services.
“The impact of this significant investment will be immense, providing for a fully integrated health care system while increasing capacity, so more Tasmanians can get access to the healthcare they need,” Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said.
Health is the largest area of spending in the budget, making up 32 per cent of expenditure with a total of $2.6bn budgeted – an average spend of $7.2m across the health sector per day.
In the 2022/23 financial year, infrastructure accounts for $120.4m of health spending, as hospital upgrades and redevelopments continue.
Stage 2 of the Royal Hobart Hospital redevelopment comes at a cost of $73.4m in the 2022/23 period. In addition to that, $7m will be spent on a new angiography suite at the RHH and $5.3m will go towards a new pharmaceutical production facility.
At the Launceston General hospital, $50m will go toward the total cost of the stage 2 redevelopment along with $2.5m to improve its respiratory unit. As long waits for elective surgery continues in Tasmania, the government is continuing its plan to deliver 30,000 extra elective surgeries and endoscopies over four years.
“We are allocating $12.1m for public private partnerships to enhance capacity to deliver care to public patients sooner,” Mr Rockliff said.
The government has included funds to improve rural health and rural ambulance facilities.
“We are seeing an increase in demand for ambulance services,” Mr Rockliff said.
This financial year, $1.65m, or $6.6m over four years, will go towards upgrading the Huonville and Sorell ambulance stations to career stations, with the recruitment of 11 new paramedics.
New ambulance stations at Queenstown, Bridgewater and Oatlands will come at a cost of $10m over three years and $14m over four years and $17.2m will go toward the $20.5m price tag to build super stations in Glenorchy and Burnie.
After the pilot of PACER, the government’s program for emergency mental healthcare in southern Tasmania, the scheme will continue, with an additional $9m over three years.
The program will also be extended to the North- West, with a pilot to be in operation from next year.
Over four years, there will be $20.5m to implement the recommendations of the review of the Roy Fagan Centre, to improve mental health outcomes for older Tasmanians.
“This funding will enable our government to significantly improve the overall level of care and treatment provided to older Tasmanians,” Mr Rockliff said.
But Tasmania’s projected health spending does come with risks, including whether the federal government contribution will keep up with demand – a challenge the government says is faced by all states and territories.
“There remains an underlying risk to the budget and forward estimates that additional state funding provided to meet the demand for health services in Tasmania may grow at a faster rate than growth in the Australian government’s capped funding contribution,” the budget paper says.
EDUCATION
New buildings, modernised IT and commitments to child safety are key planks of the education budget.
While the education union criticised the budget for failing to invest in more teachers, Education Minister Roger Jaensch said the government was in the midst of the largest infrastructure program in schools in more than 20 years.
“The Tasmanian government’s current allocation for capital works totals $250m over the forward estimates including $69.7m for 2022/23,” Mr Jaensch said.
“Our continued investment in education infrastructure not only provides vital improvements to student learning environments, it also grows the Tasmanian economy through additional jobs during planning and construction.”
School building projects across the state include agriculture VET facilities at Bothwell and Campbell Town district schools, a multi-sports facility at Bayview Secondary College at Rokeby and a multipurpose hall at Springfield Gardens Primary.
More than $20m will be spent to upgrade the former New Town and Ogilvie campuses into the new co-ed Hobart High School.
Major redevelopments are being undertaken at Cambridge Primary School, Cosgrove High School, Exeter High School, Lauderdale Primary School, Penguin District School, Sorell School and Montello Primary School. New schools will be built at Legana and Brighton.
A new Support School will be built in the North West.
Mr Jaensch said $12.2m would be spent over four years to modernise and integrate school administration systems.
“The student systems renewal phase 2 initiative recognises the importance of bringing together all essential information on students, providing schools and parents with tools to improve student wellbeing, learning and engagement,” he said.
“This initiative will also help improve the delivery, management and productivity of education in Tasmania by ensuring the right people have access to the information they require to do their jobs.
“Importantly this initiative will help keep learners at school by providing systems to support the Department with managing and monitoring attendance and other key data sets.”
The government is continuing to roll out a 2018 commitment to employ 250 more teachers over six years. Before the budget the government announced a $36.4m investment over four years to safeguard children and young people in schools, in line with the ongoing Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff reiterated the government’s commitment to child safety.
“It is our clear intention to adopt all the recommendations once the COI has finalised, but we are not waiting for the Inquiry to finish before we start this important work – we are listening and acting now,” he said.
“The 2022/23 budget includes significant investments to ensure our children and young people are safe and have the supports they need for the future.”
The funding will provide for school safeguarding officers, additional psychologists and social workers, more senior support staff, and mandatory professional development for all department staff on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse.
In vocational education and training, Mr Jaensch said the government had committed $114m in new money for TasTAFE since last year’s election.
This including funding for 100 more teachers, new facilities and improved access for people in regional areas. The budget includes $5m to complete to new water and energy trades centre of excellence at TasTAFE’s Clarence campus.
HOUSING
Mid skyrocketing demand for social accommodation, the state government will spend $538m on social and affordable housing initiatives over four years, with $204m of that to be spent this year.
“We will build 1169 homes this year, meeting our target of 1500 by June 2023 and rising to a total of 10,000 new homes by 2032,” Housing Minister Guy Barnett said.
Legislation to establish Tasmania’s Housing Authority, which will oversee the builds, is expected to go before state parliament this year to be set up by October.
To help more Tasmanians buy homes, the budget includes $2.5m over two years to continue the regional land use strategies, to help unlock more land for residential development.
The First Home Owners Grant, which provides $30,000 to first home buyers, will be extended to the end of the 2022/23 financial year and the cap to be eligible will be increased from $500,000 to $600,000.
Legislation to introduce a foreign investor’s land tax is also expected to be in place by the start of the 2022/23 financial year. Under the proposed tax, foreign investors will pay a two per cent surcharge for unused residential land.
There is also extra funding for emergency accommodation and the continuation to the Safe Space project, run by City Mission and the Salvation Army, which provides 77 places to sleep for Tasmanians sleeping rough across the state.
To continue the service, $6.85m will be provided for the service, $3.06m of which will go to the Hobart service, $1.9m to the Launceston service and $1.9 for the Burnie Safe Space.
In the North-West, 23 units will be provided for crisis and transitional accommodation for young people, along with an eight-unit facility for men dealing with homelessness in Devonport.
The Devonport Men’s Shelter will receive $2.45m over four years and $1.9m will be spent on the Launceston Women’s Shelter.
“This expansion will more than double the shelter’s capacity to help women and their children and is expected to be complete by November,” Mr Barnett said.
TRANSPORT
The Bellerive-to-Hobart ferry will become a permanent service after winning four years of funding as part of record infrastructure investment in the state budget.
The state government will embark on a massive $5.6bn infrastructure spend over four years, with roads and bridges to account for more than half of expenditure in 2022-23.
The ferry has been provided with $19m across the four-year period after a year-long trial, with Treasurer Michael Ferguson describing it as an “exciting new service”.
“The government delivered a trial of our new Bellerive-Hobart ferry last year and it has proven a great success with around 600 passengers a day using the service during the summer period,” Mr Ferguson said.
Mornington cyclist James Klousia said he had been using the ferry two to three times a week to get to work and was pleased the service would continue.
“It’s a brilliant announcement ... it’s free if you bring a bike but I’d even be happy to pay some money for it,” Mr Klousia said.
“It’s about 2 litres of diesel to get into the city and back so it’s well worth it.”
The long-awaited construction of the Bridgewater Bridge was finally set to start this year, with the project to receive $251m in this year’s budget after clearing the “final hurdle” in planning approvals, Mr Ferguson said.
The bridge will receive the lion’s share of $2.7bn in spending on all roads and bridges, with other major projects across the forward estimates including:
$166M to continue works on the Greater Hobart Traffic Solution, which is now due for completion a year ahead of schedule in 2026.
$112M for ongoing improvements to the Midland Highway.
$60M to continue implementing the Launceston and Tamar Valley Traffic Vision.
$22M for the Channel Highway bypass of Huonville.
$17M for new park and ride facilities “to give commuters choice and reduce congestion”.
Six new child and family learning centres headline $90.8m in spending on schools, education and skills infrastructure, with the new K-12 Sorrell School to receive $10m.
The new Brighton High School ($8m) and K-12 Penguin School ($5m) will also receive funding.
Aspiring plumbers and electricians will get a boost with an $11.7m investment in the water and energy trade centres of excellence, while TasTAFE facility upgrades and the Transition Fund will receive $9.5m.
TOURISM
The government is confident Tasmania’s tourism industry will continue to rebound strongly from Covid after record levels of domestic visitor spending so far this year.
Domestic visitors spent $2.1bn in the first quarter of 2022, an all-time high, while total visitor spending was the record for any March quarter despite significantly fewer international visitors than pre-pandemic times.
Treasurer Michael Ferguson said the Budget was designed to “maximise Tasmania’s resurgent visitor economy”, announcing an additional $10m investment in Tourism Tasmania over the next four years.
Inbound Tourism Support will receive $2m to help Air New Zealand provide direct flights between Hobart and Auckland, a service that was initially set to begin before the pandemic struck.
“Tasmania welcomes around 20,000 visitors from New Zealand each year and we expect this to increase,” Mr Ferguson said.
The Cradle Mountain Experience ($5m) and Freycinet Tourism Icons Project ($3m) were among the programs to receive more than $50m in tourism, recreation and culture infrastructure funding.
Originally published as Tasmania’s 2022/23 state budget analysed
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