Tasmania January to June 2016

The state government began to lose some of its gloss as it passed two years in office in March 2016 before a decisive swing against the Liberal Party in the July 2016 federal election. While Premier Will Hodgman and his deputy, Jeremy Rockcliff, remained competent and confident, others were not so well-regarded as the state was ravaged by extremes of weather when drought gave way to damaging floods in late autumn. Following controversies, one minister resigned from parliament altogether while another resigned from cabinet. There was a predictable election result in one of the two Legislative Council seats contested over the period, but a surprise result for Labor in the second, suggesting a potential turn of political tide in the island state. The Tasmanian economy continued to recover from the recession of 2012 and 2013 recording moderate 2.8 per cent economic growth (Gross State Product) over the year to December. This was the third highest growth rate in Australia behind Victoria (4.3 per cent) and New South Wales at 3.0 per cent (CommSec April). Accordingly, the state’s trend unemployment rate declined slightly to 6.6 per cent in April or 0.2 per cent down on the same period in 2015, lower than South Australia (7.0 per cent) but still higher than the national rate of 5.7 per cent. The May trend unemployment rate dropped further to 6.5 per cent, 0.3 per cent down on May the previous year (ABS 6202.0). Within Tasmania, the unemployment rates of the three regions continued to converge, as the labour market in the troubled West and North West region continued to improve, albeit from a low base (ABS 6291.0).