Tasmanian taxpayers have been lumbered with a bill of $2 million a day - or $86,000 each hour - as the Treasurer and Premier's broken budget plunges the state into unprecedented debt.
Shadow Treasurer Shane Broad said as Tasmania barrels toward $3.5 billion in debt - three times the amount of debt experienced under the Liberals 25 years ago - there's no end in sight to the Gutwein Government's financial mismanagement.
'When the Liberals came into government in 2014, the state had been debt free for a decade after Labor Premier Jim Bacon paid off the Rundle Government debt in 2004," Dr Broad said.
"Now Treasury has already warned the government in June that with the unsustainability of the state's finances Tasmania's debt could grow to as much as $30 billion by 2035.
"But the government is blissfully ignoring this dire warning, deceitfully telling Tasmanians we are on the way to be back in the black.
"The truth is we are on a highway to hell.
"It's not even remotely reasonable for the Liberal Government to be trying to spin Tasmanians when they are in fact being duped.
"How can Peter Gutwein and his Finance Minister Michael Ferguson keep a straight face in telling Tasmanians we are back in the black when they're borrowing more than $2 million a day every day for the next four years?
"This is a Premier who did not even mention the word 'debt' when he delivered his budget.
"That's because he is determined to hide the true picture which is extraordinary debt, the equivalent of each and every Tasmanian having a $50,000 credit card limit which has been maxed out."
Shane Broad MP
Shadow Treasurer
