With all eight Australian states and territories having presented their 2025-26 Budgets, it’s clear that, by most metrics, Tasmania’s public finances are in a worse condition than those of any other jurisdiction – a judgement underscored by the Tasmanian Treasury in its Pre-Election Financial Outlook Report released on 25th June 2025, which vindicates all of the conclusions and recommendations which Saul made in his Independent Review of Tasmania’s State Finances  published in August last year.

This note compares the key metrics for Tasmania’s ‘general government’ sector (comprising the ‘core’ departments and agencies funded out of the annual state budget) and the non-financial public sector as a whole (including government business enterprises and state-owned companies) with those for the other Australian states and territories.

2025-06-25 Tasmania's public finances - a comparison in eight charts