Tasmania deep in debt: Giddings does a Gillard Labor's new generation of leaders - not least the women - are reviving the party's reputation for reckless spending and debt: TASMANIA's budget has plunged into record deficit, but the Labor-Greens government, facing an election within 10 months, has chosen ballooning debt rather than further savings to avoid a crisis. Premier and Treasurer Lara Giddings is this afternoon delivering a budget that outlines a deficit of $425m for the 2013-14 financial year, and a debt of $229m by 2014-15. Despite the budget crisis, the budget will see a pre-election spending increase of almost 3 per cent... The profligacy of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Anna Bligh and Giddings will take a generation to live down.