Obstacles to progress: What's wrong with Tasmania, really?

Why Tasmania is such a long-term under-performer, and what might be done to improve it are important questions not only for Tasmanians, but also for the nation as a whole. In fact, it can be argued that what’s happening in Tasmania is not an exception but a microcosm for a major part of Australia; it is already typical of non-metropolitan regions and might represent more of Australia’s future. One advantage in Tasmania, however, is that because it is both a ‘region’ and a state, data and other information are available that allow us more clearly to see patterns that remain buried among bigger aggregates in other states, which elsewhere combine the big cities with non-urban regions into a comforting average.