WE INVITE the movers and shakers in Tasmania - political parties, minor parties or independent MPs and key interest groups - to reflect on and take responsibility for the scandalous economic circumstances facing our state.
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Over the decades of their stewardship, or lack of it, Tasmania has remained an economically challenged backwater, with an abnormally high welfare dependency and scandalously low education outcomes.
We suffer a mindset fixed on what can't be done rather than what is possible.
The Greens have carved out a whole industry for saying no. It is not good enough for them to frighten investors away from Tasmania. They also attack the very industry they once supported, with regard to tourism development.
They run the risk of destroying their brand. They need to articulate the difference between preservation and self preservation.
If the Greens have an economic policy they should flaunt it. They would have a far greater credibility if they coupled their concern for the environment with an equal concern for human capital. So far they've got the balance wrong.
The major parties should be made to invest equally in policy development as much as they invest in opposition to each other.
We are not interested in manufactured abuse and parliamentary antics. We understand that they oppose aspects of each other's policies but we also know there's a lot they agree on. We expect them to propose solutions, rather than some deceitful teaser on more detail being revealed closer to the next election.
Our message to industry is go for it, but mind that you preserve our precious Tasmania as a world class wilderness area.
Public sector unions and the government must keep talking. Conservation groups hopefully will one day get it - that conservation and development are not mutually exclusive concepts. Tasmania needs someone with brains and a vision to reconcile the two.
