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Tas budget offers $100 million to farmers

Tasmania's Liberal government is spruiking its big spending budget's benefits for rural communities and pledges to tackle quad bike fatalities.
Liberal Premier Will Hodgman's Tasmanian budget will commit $100m for farmers and rural communities.

Tas budget offers $100 million to farmers

Tasmania's Liberal government is spruiking its big spending budget's benefits for rural communities and pledges to tackle quad bike fatalities.

The Tasmanian government will take on one of the biggest killers on the state's farms in a high-spending budget which it says will deliver stronger rural economies.

Liberal Premier Will Hodgman's 2019/20 budget commits $100 million towards farmers and rural communities, including $70 million for new irrigation schemes, $16 million for agricultural industry development projects, a $3 million injection for Landcare and $4.8 million for the Weeds Action Fund.

The budget also includes a $700,000 package to improve quad bike safety - this in response to the 11 quad bike-related deaths in the state since 2011.

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The package includes a public safety campaign and a 12-month, $500,000 rebate scheme for rollover or crush protection devices to quad bikes, which will give farmers' a rebate of 50 per cent of the purchase price.

The Hodgman government said it aimed to grow farm gate value of the state's agricultural sector to $10 billion per annum by 2050.

But its budget, released on Thursday, will push the state into net debt for the first time in 15 years to fund a record $3.6 billion infrastructure spend.

The budget will maintain a slim surplus of $57.4 million this coming financial year but plunge the state into a net debt of $284 million at the same time.

That debt is forecast to balloon to $1.1 billion in 2022/23, about a sixth of the state's overall yearly expenditure.