The Gutwein Liberal Government is committed to supporting Tasmanians to grow their digital skills, helping businesses better compete in the digital economy and providing better digital infrastructure across the State to create even more jobs.

That is why we will increase investment in the digital economy by an additional $8 million.

We have a clear plan to back businesses, entrepreneurs and start-ups to develop and market their products and services around the world. If re-elected, we will invest a total of $1.68 million to continue to support skills development through extending funding to the long running Digital Ready for Business program, as well as the Enterprise innovation hubs in Hobart and Launceston, and Project Springboard.

We’re also charting a path to the stars for a bold new Tasmanian industry, with an exciting $330,000 initiative to position Tasmania as a significant contributor to the nation’s ambitions in space research and development.

The ‘Team Tasmania’ partnership between the Tasmanian Government, the University of Tasmania and HENSOLDT, a global leader in space radar technology, will assist Tasmania to become the prime location and leader of Australia’s sovereign Space Domain Awareness capabilities in monitoring of satellites and space debris. This new initiative will attract to new domestic and international investment, a skilled workforce, start-ups and national and international expertise to our State.

We will also improve educational outcomes for more than 1,850 students and provide opportunities for businesses to access higher speed internet connections, by contributing $300,000 towards a $1.1 million project to transition nine regional school sites from limited bandwidth wireless to high speed optical fibre connections.

We will also invest $4.3 million to begin development of a digital Service Tasmania portal to provide Tasmanians with a secure and easy-to-use access point for Government services, accessed through a single login.

The secure portal will feature an accessible and user-friendly interface, offering access to Government services anywhere, at any time and on any device, with integration to the Commonwealth’s MyGov portal.

Digital inclusion in our community has risen by 8.1 per cent since coming to Government, but we know there’s more to do. That’s why we will double the funding to our digital inclusion program; Digital Ready for Daily Life to $700,000 through to 2025, allowing deeper engagement with communities and ensuring the vulnerable in our community are not left behind.

Only a re-elected majority Gutwein Liberal Government will build a more confident, better connected digital economy, and a more digitally inclusive community.

The full policy is available here.