Tinkering around the edges of the cost of living crisis during an election

For example, 60 per cent of Foodbank recipients have someone in the family in paid work.

Political parties have responded with a raft of media-friendly but relatively minor tinkering with existing concessions and regulations.

Allowing more dogs in rental accommodation over here an electricity concession over there.

Yes, they will make a difference for some families, but for an incoming government to seriously reduce the gap between incomes and cost of living pressures (say, returning to 2019 levels) the bill would be in the tens of millions per annum and rising.

Promising to blow out further debt and/or to tax Tasmanians (as distinct from the Liberals proposing to tax tourists) will be seen by risk-averse politicians as a form of electoral self-destruction so it won't happen.

This is why parties will continue to focus on small but high--profile cost of living relief efforts.

Many of the big levers to turn around the cost-of-living crisis are outside state governments' control. For example, most wages policies the income and tax-transfer systems.

State governments have lots of little levers (such as concessions and housing regulations), but these will only ever take the edge from cost-of-living pressures.

Tinkering at the edges will not solve median rents increasing in Tasmania by 51 peer in five years, and energy bills rising by 22.5 per cent in the last 18 months.

But what we do know is that hungry children do not learn very well, and that skipping GP visits is connected to overcrowded emergency departments and ambulance ramping.

We also know that it is our regional and rural communities that are hit hardest with higher transport and grocery costs.

In those countries globally that do not face a cost-of-living crisis we see a few different settings.

Parliaments that focus on co-operation not conflict, higher levels of well-being tagged taxation, better alignment between wage growth and cost increases; market regulators with teeth; a more proactive role from big business and philanthropy deep investment in social enterprises; more focus on early intervention and resilience; prioritisation of educational attainment and more open conversations about poverty and how to solve it.

Alongside the tinkering, our prospective representatives should be canvassing these deeper issues.

Professor David Adams University of Tasmania