Today’s proposed closure of the Boag’s brewery is a gut punch for Launceston, Northern Tasmania, and the workers who have kept one of Tasmania’s most iconic brands going for generations.

This is a sad day for an iconic Tasmanian business, and another result of government inaction.

The priority now must be the 42 permanent workers and 10 casual staff affected by this decision. Labor welcomes the company’s commitment to worker support measures.

The proposed closure shows the growing pressures facing Tasmanian manufacturing and production businesses. Freight costs, rising electricity prices, increasing input costs, declining volumes, and ongoing TasWater pressures and ever moving goalposts are making it harder for businesses to continue manufacturing in Tasmania.

That's not good enough. 

Tasmania cannot afford to lose more local production, more skilled jobs, or more iconic brands from regional communities because the cost of doing business is too high and the Government has failed to act.

The warning signs were there in June 2024, when Lion shifted mainland production out of Launceston and 15 local jobs were lost.

The Rockliff Government should have treated that as a wake-up call and fought harder to keep brewing jobs in Tasmania.

There are practical things government can do to lower the cost of doing business, including action on freight through a Bass Strait national highway arrangement, addressing uncompetitive power prices, and fixing unresolved TasWater pressures.

Instead, the Government stood by while those costs kept mounting.

Less than two years later, Boag’s is on the chopping block.

Northern Tasmanian workers deserve more than sympathy. They deserve a government prepared to stand up for local jobs, lower the cost of doing business, and fight for the future of manufacturing in Northern Tasmania.