The Liberals are today releasing our full election costings, confirming that all of the policies in our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future can be delivered without new or increased taxes.

“Our costings confirm that all of our commitments under our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future (totaling $805.47 million in opex and $869.2 million in capital) can be paid for without the need to increase taxes,” Treasurer Michael Ferguson said.

“This includes taking into account the more than $280 million investment of delivering on the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.

“Tasmanians know that they can trust us with their State’s finances.

“We inherited a sea of red-ink from Labor and the Greens in 2014, and consistently delivered surpluses until the onset of COVID where our strong financial management allowed us to invest nearly $2 billion to save lives and livelihoods.

“Additionally, with our strong economic management, we will now put in place a new law that will ensure 50 per cent of any GST windfalls, over and above Treasury forecasts, go directly into offsetting the unfunded superannuation liability left behind by Labor

“This will mean that in future, we will pay less on the cost of servicing Labor’s unfunded super liability, which is currently forecast to rise to a massive $500 million per year by 2035.”

Minister Ferguson said that for full transparency, the Liberals have also costed Labor’s election policies, based upon their own publicly released information contained in the daily Gerathy and Madison media report.

“As of today, Labor has now made a massive $1.95 billion in opex commitments throughout the campaign, and $1.59 billion in capex commitments. This doesn’t even include the dozens of uncosted policies that Labor simply threw their hands in the air and didn't even have a crack at costing, or funded through secret letters and Facebook posts.

“The very first policy Labor announced was their woefully under costed electricity policy which is still Missing in Action on Treasury’s website.

“In total, Labor has committed at least $1.1 billion more in opex, and $700 million more capex during the campaign than the Liberals.

“On top of this, Labor made a number of “zombie” promises prior to the election campaign which they haven’t walked away from, including a $600 million per year public sector wage increase, $50 million per year reversal of our public sector efficiency dividend, and abolishing the landfill levy.

“All up, Labor’s costings reveal disastrous cumulative deficits of nearly $4.5 billion over the forward estimates, which can only be paid for by raising taxes.

“We have been saying all through this campaign that Labor would need a magic money tree to pay for all of their promises, and these costings confirm they will need a plantation of them.

“Yesterday alone, in one mad four hour binge session, Labor promised nearly $600 million in spending in what can only be described as a desperate attempted vote-buying exercise.

“Labor have shown that they have no fiscal or economic plan, with their hastily thrown together Fiscal Strategy, and their complete disregard for Tasmania’s economic future with their reckless spending throughout the campaign.

“Only a majority Rockliff Liberal Government has a 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future and can be trusted to manage the state’s finances.”

Minister Ferguson said he looked forward to Labor officially presenting a full and proper account of their undisciplined campaign costings.

“No doubt Labor are hoping to release their costings as late as possible so as to avoid proper scrutiny,” Minister Ferguson said.

“Now that we have released our costings, the pressure is on Labor to release theirs.”

TABLE 1: LIBERAL OPERATING ELECTION COMMITMENTS

Notes: Expenditure is shown as a positive number, and revenue as a negative number.

*While some policies result in reduced revenue, for example the Stamp Out Stamp Duty waiver for first home buyers, these have been costed as an expense for ease of illustration.

Table 1 shows a pathway for the Budget returning to surplus over the Forward Estimate period after taking into account our 2024 Election commitments and our commitment to implement the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings. Importantly, all our commitments are fully costed and fully funded.

TABLE 2: LABOR OPERATING ELECTION COMMITMENTS

A summary of our infrastructure investment commitments is provided in Table 3 below.

TABLE 3: LIBERAL INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT

TABLE 4: LABOR INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT

TABLE 5: FORECAST NET OPERATING BALANCE