TASMANIA’S LABOR PREMIER, David Bartlett, was sensitive to the critical attention his state has long attracted on the mainland when he addressed the National Press Club in October last year. Challenging the national stereotype that Tasmania is a backwoods basket case, he pointed to an assessment by Commsec which showed that the Tasmanian economy was the best performing in Australia.

Bartlett no doubt surprised the scribes when he painted a picture of twenty-first-century economic prosperity built upon Tasmania’s strategic advantages: water, renewable energy and broadband infrastructure. The address was part green paper, part election pre-launch, and the Premier was unapologetically bullish about the future.