A re-elected majority Liberal Government will help support our most vulnerable with a $3.2 million investment into our community services sector that will create jobs, address skills shortages in the sector, and ease cost of living pressures for Tasmanians.

If re-elected, we will boost the NILS Energy Saver Loan and Subsidy Scheme by doubling the current funding from $1 million to $2 million over four years.

The scheme has been very successful in helping thousands of Tasmanians purchase energy efficient appliances, reducing their power bills, and this investment will help even more Tasmanians into the future and help keep up with forecast demand.

We will also introduce the option to pay car registrations quarterly, spreading these payments across the year and further easing the financial burden on Tasmanian households.

Our vehicle registrations are already the lowest in the country, and this will further help to smooth household bills across the year and ease the financial burden on Tasmanians, with quarterly payments to be available from 1 July if we are re-elected.

We will also investigate more frequent car registration payments in consultation with the community advocacy sector, such as the option to have monthly or fortnightly payments. This will be based on a review of interstate systems, third-party solutions and the success of online billing and text message reminders.

Additionally, we will review and modernise the current car registration fee structure to provide further relief, with a commitment to introduce any legislation required by the end of the year to implement any changes needed.

And to help support Tasmania’s Community Services Sector and meet industry projections of an additional 4000 jobs by 2024, we will partner with TasCOSS on a range of measures to support the sector’s growth.

This includes:

• Establishing a community services-based project team, alongside a workforce-ready team to ensure the emerging workforce has the skills they need to deliver quality support for Tasmanians;
• Establish a Workforce Development Fund to deliver a coordinated “rapid boost” to the industry’s training capacity;
• Provide $100,000 for a recruitment campaign to attract workers and retain workers in the sector; and
• Strengthen governance for community sector organisations, with an investment of $50,000 a year for three years into a scholarship fund.

Only a re-elected majority Gutwein Liberal Government is committed to easing cost of living pressures and creating the workforce our State needs, with a clear plan to secure Tasmania’s future.

The full policy is available here.