Talking Point – Investing in a Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Tasmania

Talking Point | Mercury Newspaper | December 28, 2020 

When the world faced the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, Rahm Emanuel stated “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”. 

The Barack Obama chief of staff and later Chicago mayor urged public and private sectors to re-evaluate themselves and identify potential new approaches previously not considered a priority or achievable.

This is the thinking we need now in Tasmania and Australia as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Internationally and nationally we are seeing consensus calls across community, public and private sectors to think beyond returning to things as they were. People want to use this unique moment to stop, reevaluate and reimagine our societies and economies.

People want to use this unique moment to stop, re-evaluate and most importantly reimagine our societies and economies.

Pre-COVID, we know there were growing and hardening inequities globally and locally between the haves and have-nots, posing serious and alarming ramifications for social cohesion, health and economies.

The sudden and unprecedented threat of COVID-19 has served to throw those societal fault-lines, such as entrenched generational disadvantage, marginalisation, and systemic bias into sharp relief.

For many, a return to a pre-COVID Tasmania is not a positive prospect; it risks being a sentence reimposed even more harshly than before.

Without purposeful planning and investment, we will see too many Tasmanians further relegated to entrenched marginalisation, disenfranchisement, struggle and poverty. This is not hyperbole, but simple fact.

I have made a submission to the Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council, urging its members to keep this front and centre when developing its two-to-five year plan. The pandemic has highlighted that positive reforms that can be implemented, and swiftly, where there is a clear will and a common goal.

What does a post-pandemic Tasmania look like?

We must imagine and agree on what a rebuilt Tasmania looks like. This needs a vision, beyond lip service, based on inclusivity, equity, resilience and sustainability. We need to attach clear goals to these fundamental principles to hold ourselves to account. Meeting these goals will require a transition plan, systematically identifying remedial actions for our key fault lines.

My submission to PESRAC advocates we plan to build a resilient, inclusive and sustainable Tasmania.

An inclusive Tasmania means we need to not only ensure no Tasmanian falls between the gaps due to age, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical disability, but that all are provided the same opportunity to live their best life possible and achieve their potential.

A resilient Tasmania is one which has invested in sufficient future-forward and social infrastructure such that we are best prepared to weather equitably any unpredicted mass disruption. A resilient Tasmania fosters local innovation, particularly in digital technologies and energy efficiency technologies.

The threshold test for a resilience plan is whether we have invested wisely in measures that, should our economy be paralysed again, or the island be isolated again from national and international trade and services, Tasmanians can still access affordable housing, heating, nutritious food, and equitable health, education and other community support services while supporting jobproviding and income generating sectors including the arts, hospitality, carers and service providers, as well as local businesses.

If any plan cannot deliver this resilience scenario, then it risks being a bandaid papering over the cracks.

A sustainable Tasmania protects its natural assets and people, builds on its strengths and ensures that which we rely upon is not depleted, and that which we can afford to share is value-added . A post-pandemic sustainable Tasmania is one that tackles head-on the challenge of climate change and the synergies in opportunities for addressing social inequities and protecting our environment. It will prioritise support for innovation and entrepreneurship and provide logistical support for local solutions to common challenges.

It involves recognition of the role played by the scalingup of social protection to provide all Tasmanians with the capacity to participate in local economies and communities.

Tasmania must continue to do its fair share of heavy lifting in addressing Closing the Gap and social justice issues for the Aboriginal community. We know Tasmanian Aboriginals are over-represented in our judicial and court system, and face steep health, education, housing and employment challenges. The Tasmanian Aboriginal community faces entrenched generational disadvantage dating back to the dispossession that came with invasion of their land. Our vision for Tasmania must include justice for its first people.

The call throughout COVID-19 was “we are all in this together” . I believe that. Now let’s make it a reality in our post-COVID future together – a resilient, inclusive and sustainable Tasmania.