United Australia Party fights for special economic zone for Tasmania

The United Australia Party’s Tasmanian Senate Leader, Kevin Morgan, says the state needs a special economic zone to open the doors to private investment and jobs growth.

“Under a United Australia Party platform, we will create the opportunity zone for the future.

“Today Tasmania needs an economy that builds career paths for our children leaving school with guaranteed jobs.

“Every child must have job and not have welfare as their start in life. The best welfare is a job and all Tasmanians deserve equal opportunity.

“Liberal and Labor have failed this state and this country now for decades. Youth unemployment, poverty and homelessness are on the rise and no one else can be blamed.”

Mr Morgan said Tasmania would benefit greatly from Collaborative Clever Communities.

“The CCC effect is a proven model used successfully by the OECD to drive local initiatives and forge bridges and fix broken links between industry players.

“Australia needs to realise that Tasmania can build its future it just simply needs the support required for this new economic vision,’’ he said.

“Tasmania is an island with a population just exceeding 500,000 people, as such it has unique qualities that do not apply across the nation.

“Isolated by Bass Strait, it means our economy and our populace is also disadvantaged by transport in that shipping to national and international markets by sea limits and restricts us in time, volume and costs.

“With a small population and an economy that has gone through radical change over the last 40 years we see today an economic change starting to happen.

“However, today we are highly reliant on the mining industry and our fast-growing fish-farming sector which have overtaken dairying and tourism.

“Our weaknesses are that we see our state and our country reliant on others in most cases. The diversity we need is not to rely on a few markets because at some point, this will see us drastically affected by changing dynamics,” Mr Morgan said.

“Today China is our hero, tomorrow it maybe our real Achilles’ heel. That does not mean we stop our China dealings, it simply means we need to rely less on China and build more diverse economic ties.

“Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and other ASEAN nations are close neighbours and growing economies.

“Japan, Korea, the USA, and the UK, will always be a part of our export mix and maybe a larger part going forward.

“However today it is here in Tasmania where we need to build a far more dynamic economy.

“To do this we need to bring more private investment into our state. To entice private investors, you have to create opportunity around investment.

“Today there is no enticement under Liberal and Labor and the Greens have killed it stone dead.

“Over the last few decades we have seen this stifled by insecurity around our political climate with the Greens having stopped multiple projects such as Gordon below Franklin hydro, the pulp mills at Wesley Vale and the Tamar Valley, forestry and mining.

“These major road blocks have hit our state significantly and dried up the private investment that today should be seeing our state blossom in many new ways,’’ he said.

The United Australia Party is fielding outstanding candidates for the House of Representatives in Tasmania including café owner and Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame inductee Darren Winter (Franklin), champion Tasmanian racing driver Allan Roark (Bass), finance broker Mick Warne (Lyons) and hospitality business owner Karen Spaulding (Braddon).

Mr Morgan is joined on the senate ticket by respected educator David Williams.

ENDS