Far be it for me to take even a modicum of shameful pleasure at another’s misfortune, but, as a Tasmanian, it is just the tiniest bit gratifying to watch Western Australia admit that they’ve stuffed their economy.
After all, Tasmania has had to endure years of smugness and kvetching from Sandgropers with short memories.
Some of us remember when it was WA that was the national suckerfish keeping itself alive by feeding off the more prosperous eastern states. Up til the late 70s, WA was the “mendicant state”. Then the mining boom hit.
But, even flush with decades of almost literal rivers of gold, WA still managed to bugger its economy in the late 2000s. With the result that unemployment in WA surged while Tasmania’s fell. In the last few years, WA’s state government had managed to repair its employment woes.
Now, the Wuhan Flu has buggered it all again.
WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt has urged his federal counterpart to extend the JobKeeper program beyond its current September deadline, warning that the assistance was propping up around 5 per cent of the state’s workforce[…]
Treasury modelling tabled in WA’s parliament on Thursday morning showed that the state expects its economy to contract by 5 per cent in the June quarter alone and a further 3 per cent in the 2021 financial year. The combined hit will suck around $12 billion out of the state’s economy.
WA’s unemployment rate sits at around 10-11 per cent and Mr Wyatt said JobKeeper was helping to keep that figure lower than would otherwise be the case.
Of course, the pandemic – or, more accurately, the government responses to it – are shafting Tasmania’s previously resurgent economy, too. Tassie’s unemployment rate is likewise expected to hit around 12 percent. But our debt burden is projected to be less than a fifth of WA’s.
“We are seeing some of the worst figures that anyone has seen in their lifetime, I never thought I’d see these kinds of figures as a treasurer.”
Well, that’s what happens when governments panic and shutter their economies. This is a crisis that’s going to hit every state in Australia.
As WA’s beleaguered government would no doubt protest, “We’re all in this together”. I agree. This is a national crisis.
Just so long as WA remembers how much together we’re in it, the next time they’re inclined to sneer at us here in Tasmania.
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