Dangers remain for state in interim report on GST

Posted: 08 May 12 | I'VE written previously in these columns that one of the clouds hanging over the medium-term outlook for Tasmania's public finances is the agitation by the larger states against the long-standing arrangements for carving up the revenue from the GST among the states and territories. |

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Tough budget tipped to cope with reality

Posted: 10 Apr 12 | Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has been saying, in recent weeks, that the federal budget that will he will deliver in four weeks' time will be more difficult than any of the preceding four that he has brought down since becoming Treasurer. |

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Leaving school early wastes opportunity

Posted: 08 Nov 11 | THE year is drawing to a close and so over the next few weeks 15 and 16-year-olds at Tasmania's state high schools will be frocking or suiting up to attend what they, their parents and their schools like to call leavers' dinners. |

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Redistribution of GST would hit state hard

Posted: 11 Oct 11 | SIR Humphrey Appleby, the head of the civil service in the Yes, Prime Minister TV series, which is returning as a stage play in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra early next year, used to advise Prime Minister Jim Hacker that you "never commission an inquiry without knowing the outcome''. |

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Time to rein in spending

Posted: 09 Aug 11 | One of the jokes describes two economists walking down a street and hearing two people yelling at each other out of the windows of their apartments on opposite sides of that street. |

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Government fails first 'savings' test

Posted: 12 Jul 11 | WHEN I wrote, the day after last month's state budget, that the government's track record in delivering on commitments to reduce spending was "not terribly convincing'', I didn't really expect to be proved right so quickly. |

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Saul Eslake is Chief Economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia, and a non-executive director of Hydro Tasmania. The views expressed are entirely his own, and not necessarily those of either of these organisations.