Mixed responses from the peak players of Tasmania's unions, social services and health advocates

Meanwhile the Greens labelled it a "band-aid" budget after years of Liberal underspending in key sectors, with continued funding shortfalls for housing, child safety, and public transport, and continued propping up of Forestry Tasmania.

Speaking after the budget was released Labor's Mr Broad highlighted a "record" $3.5 billion debt over the forward estimates, saying the Premier "can't hide behind accounting tricks forever".

He said the debt was a long term strategy from government, that will now see $300 million of taxpayer money spent to service it over the next four years.

"The Premier spoke for almost an hour and the one thing he didn't mention was debt...he must be a little bit embarrassed,because this is the first time since 2004 that the state has actually had debt," Mr Broad said.

"What we have seen from this government for a long time is that expenditure is higher than their revenue. That means that all the money that has been in the kitty is now gone...they have just been running down the cash balance and now the debt is building up."

Greens leader Cassie O'Connor said the budget ignored the climate crisis, but positive wins could still be found in energy efficiency upgrades for low income households, funding for solar schools, investment in school trauma and speech specialists, carbon farming grants and emergency food relief.

"It seems our Alternative Budgets aren't as kooky as the Liberals claim," she said.

TasCOSS chief executive Adrienne Picone said the budget showed "a real willingness to do things differently", to involve people and community members in decision making processes.

"There were no surprises in today's budget ... one of the things we were most pleased about was a willingness to address some of the more entrenched problems we have in Tasmania in a more strategic and systematic way, particular in regards to youth mental health, housing, and other things."

Mental Health Council of Tasmania chief executive Connie Digolis said it was an "ambitious budget".

"It is fantastic to see the government looking towards prevention and wellbeing, but these are going to come with challenges. It is going to be a challenge to get a workforce that is going to fill the gaps we have. It is challenging to see those outcomes in the time frame that we are actually looking at.

"It is ambitious, long term, and something that sits outside a current budget and election term to really see the benefits that we are trying to achieve."

CPSU's Thirza White said it was not a good budget for the public sector, similarly Union Tas 'Jess Munday said it would not assist the serious issues of underemployment.

"This budget lacks the funding to meet promised commitments around a modern and effective public service. It is entirely silent on what his plan is for the State Service Act...we see cuts in child safety, and entrenchment of insecure work in biosecurity and therapeutic services in prisons. It is not a good budget for the public sector, and we would of expected more given the important role that public sector took us through the pandemic."

Australian Education Union's David Genford said it lacks foresight.

"Without future planning to employ more teachers and provide for in class support, I think we are going to be letting students down ... it is really disappointing that we can't really deal with the teachers who are at the forefront who are really trying to help our students. These are people who are overworked, where schools can't get the staff into classrooms."

Health and Community Services Union secretary Tim Jacobson labelled it a "cash splash".

"The two issue of concern is the significant investment that the government is looking at investing into elective surgery, and investment into additional paramedics. That is all predicated on our ability to recruit people into the state, and given the circumstances that we are in right now, it may end up being an aspirational goal as opposed to a reality.

"What we are looking at is another cash splash into one of the biggest problems that we have got, and that is elective surgery. At the same time we have increasing demand as a result of a sicker, ageing and socially economically disadvantaged community that are arriving into our emergency departments. What is peculiar to us is what they have forecast is increasing ambulance demand but decreasing emergency department presentations."

RACT chief executive Garry Bailey was pleased but said the organisation would "be keeping them honest and monitoring the projects".

"I think the government has had a decent dose of realism as far as infrastructure goes for road safety...there will be a deeper analysis to see if we can meet the timetables. They know, we all know that they are restricted by the capacity of the civil construction industry to role out all those projects. As to individual projects, there is nothing new under the sun. Most of the road projects have already been promised, just a bit more funding for them."

Masters Builders Association chief executive Matthew Pollock said the budget proves that construction is a "job generator and economic accelerator".

"Today's budget [will] rely on is good management of the virus and also ensuring that we can keep construction sites open and keep construction sites working...we have seen a strong investment into vocational training, something that the industry was certainly asking for. It means we have the resources to skill up and train the 6500 new construction workers we will need to deliver the forward pipeline of infrastructure work."