The horrific figures outlined in the Economic and Fiscal Update report exposes the government's poor handling of the budget over the last six years.
The reportshowed the forecast net debt for Tasmania for the 2020-21 financial year is $2.35 billion dollars, 27,500 jobs lost by the end of June and an unemployment rate of 12.25 per cent.
Shadow Treasurer, David O'Byrne, said when COVID-19 hit, the government had nothing in the tank.
"This is a horrendous set of numbers, made worse by the fact that the government has been running on empty," Mr O'Byrne said.
"Governments need to prepare for economic shocks. Labor had a billion dollars in cash and investments at hand to respond heading into the GFC, leaving Peter Gutwein $200 million in the bank when he was elected and that has been frittered away.
"Tasmania was already heading into net debt and budget deficits before the pandemic hit.
"COVID-19 has exposed the poor handling of the budget over the last 6 years, net debt, poor fiscal position despite years of economic sunshine. These are the wasted Hodgman/Gutwein years.
"What we can't see now is a knee jerk response. Our first priority is the provision of good public services, particularly health, education and housing.
"Labor won't accept any further cuts to frontline services and the government must acknowledge that the North West COVID-19 outbreak was in part due to poor resourcing of Health.
"We are calling on the government to rule out redundancies in the public sector and come clean on any plans to privatise or introduce new tax plans."
David O'Byrne MP
Shadow Treasurer
