Your State Government is focussed on charting a steady course through the current global recession to protect as many Tasmanian jobs as we can right now, while continuing to invest in the opportunities that will provide jobs for the next generation.
Right now, Tasmania is confronted by the three great global challenges that will dominate the 21st Century:
• The management of scarce water resources;
• The rapid race of the telecommunications revolution; and
• The imperative for creating sustainable and renewable energy.
And in each one, Tasmania has natural advantages that we must seize to create new generation industries and new generation jobs.
That’s why we are right now rolling out $400 million worth of irrigation projects to manage our water resources in a way that can make Tasmania the foodbowl of the nation.
In telecommunications, we have lit up the Basslink optic fibre which is bringing cheaper, faster and more competitive broadband services into Tasmania right now. And we have embarked, together with the Rudd Government, on making Tasmania the most technologically connected place on the planet by 2014 through the National Broadband Network.
In renewable energy, we are seeing right now the investments in wind and wave energy, and in solar and geothermal technology, that can drive a sustainable energy future for Tasmania.
We are getting on with the job.
David Bartlett MP
Premier