Tasmania's economy in worryingly poor health: leading Aussie economist

The economy of Australia's smallest state, Tasmania, has been given an alarming diagnosis by one of the country's leading economists.

According to Saul Eslake, former chief economist at ANZ Bank who now runs a consultancy out of Tasmania, the state risks falling further behind the rest of Australia because its residents are poorer, sicker, older and more likely to be unemployed than other Australians.

In his report on the state of the economy, Eslake found that Tasmanian households earned 30 percent less than the rest of Australia - and that the state risked further declining unless there was a significant increase in output in the near future.

Eslake said on Wednesday there had been no net job growth in Tasmania for eight years, and there was a huge risk that Tasmanians would continue to be significantly poorer financially than other Australians.

In contrast to the national average, household income in Tasmania was a third lower, while Tasmanian workers earned 11.2 U.S. dollars less per hour.

"We are the poorest, oldest, sickest, least employed and least educated part of the country," Eslake said on Wednesday.

"That inevitably means our economic position will deteriorate relative to the rest of the country unless we decide that we're going to change some of those things."

He also warned that Tasmania risked having a gross state product 40 percent lower than the rest of Australia if it did not lift its output.

Eslake said downturns in the agriculture, energy and manufacturing sectors were prime reasons for Tasmania's "disappointing growth rate" of just 1.3 percent.

On a positive note, Hobart, Tasmania's capital, has a booming real estate market which has produced strong results over the past financial year. Endit