Tassie 2022: It’s time for our political leaders to deliver what Tasmanians need

OVER the past two weeks, the Mercury has devoted more than 60 pages to this series — a reader-led, deep-dive into what are the right choices for Tasmania over the next four years, and beyond.

Tassie 2022: Mercury readers have had their say on the future development of Tasmania, the issues of life in the state and the needs of its residents. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE.

OVER the past two weeks, the Mercury has devoted more than 60 pages to this series — a reader-led, deep-dive into what are the right choices for Tasmania over the next four years, and beyond.

Rather than looking back, our Tassie 2022 has focused on the opportunities and threats facing us and how we can all work together to ensure a bright future for the state.

The series began with an online survey of readers, and more than 800 of you kindly took the time to respond. Those results provided a richly detailed data set of what real Tasmanians care about and what they want.

The future of poker machines did come up — a lot. But you also raised so much more from how to best balance development and conservation, to cost-of-living pressures, and how our businesses can best compete in the global 21st century marketplace.

(We have since delivered the results — and every single idea you raised in the open-ended questions — to the Premier, Opposition Leader, and the Greens Leader.)

Led by those results, our team of experienced Tasmanian journalists then spoke to business chiefs, lobby groups, academics, and everyday people as they explored the issues.

We reported the ideas raised in-paper and on our website, focusing on a different topic every day.

Starting with the development versus conversation argument and how we can best share the wealth across our state, we then looked at Hobart’s rental crisis and revealed that it is now so challenging that families are being forced to live in tents in our capital’s suburbs.

We reported ideas for how we can ensure our tourism industry is performing at its best, and what infrastructure and planning is required to facilitate population growth.

We asked the state’s business leaders for their ideas, and we devoted a day’s attention to each health and aged care, education, law and order, science and innovation, arts and culture, lifestyle and sport.

It’s been a massive exercise, but also a valuable one.

Our campaign was supported commercially by Tasmanian icons the Federal Group, Tassal, The Spirit of Tasmania, the Hobart Private Hospital and TasTAFE. Each chose to make the investment to show their support of the conversation.

But the campaign was not about pushing their barrows, it was about you, our valued readers — and what you want for this state.

It’s now over to our political leaders to respond.

And we do acknowledge that a meaningful response to such a large body of work is probably not easy.

So we’ve helped them.

Today, we publish an action plan made up of the 10 biggest issues raised in our Tassie 2022 reporting.

Our request for both the Liberals and the Labor Party is now straight-forward: Before the election, deliver to our readers — and therefore all Tasmanians — a detailed plan for how in government you would address each of these issues.

Keep your responses positive — this isn’t about the past; it’s about the future.

Give us all confidence you have a plan to ensure the Tasmania of 2022 is an even better place than the Tasmania of today.

Since 1854, the Mercury has always advocated for a better Tasmania. Tassie 2022 is simply the next step in delivering on that commitment to our readers, and to the community we are proud to serve every day.

And so to our political leaders: the ball’s in your court.