A couple of thousand public servants were out in the sunshine on parliament lawns on Thursday, venting their displeasure at what they see as the government's failure to negotiate a pay freeze in good faith.

Efforts to save public servants' jobs may well be in vain, but the unions' campaign looks to have landed some body blows on the government.

To make matters worse, details of job cuts and program closures across the health and education sectors in particular will likely create dozens of small, bad-news stories that risk coalescing into a serious problem for a government not yet 12 months into the job.

And the Tasmanian public does not seem terribly thrilled with the government at the moment, if a series of public gauges are anything to go by.

A Southern Cross poll with more than 2000 respondents found that 83 per cent of people held the government, and not unions, to blame for the dispute.

Meanwhile, a post on Premier Will Hodgman's Facebook page blaming unions for Thursday's strike and school disruptions was withdrawn after garnering more than 300 mostly negative comments.

The third piece of bad news - and bad news seems to come in threes - was an EMRS poll showing the government's support had dipped to its lowest level in four years.

The government is clearly losing the battle in selling its budget repair message - so much so that a Treasury boffin has been seconded across to bolster the Premier's media team.

But the parliamentary sitting year has ended, and the government will appreciate the chance to get out of a scorching hot spotlight for a few weeks.

The budget cuts will hang over the government's head for a while yet, but the next election is, in political terms, an eternity away.

The government may have copped a kicking this week, but it has mostly come from outside parliament and not the opposition, a team that still seems to be reeling from an electoral hiding in March.

And importantly - and this is a liberty the Liberals' Victorian comrades do not have - Tasmanians angry at the Abbott government will vote federally more than a year before scribbling on a state ballot paper.

It means the state government has the best part of three years to show the state that the current pain is worth it, especially if the bottom line starts to look a little healthier.

For a government now with a relatively light legislative agenda, expect to hear a great deal about an economic recovery in 2015.

The Liberals still have political credits in the bank, but any second-chance cards for being a new government have well and truly been used.

The union campaign and the consequences of the Liberals' decisions mean the government benches are starting to look like hot seats.

And as climate scientists will testify, things are only getting hotter.