Politicians breaking promises is usually treated as a political sin.

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The media often describe election commitments as the contract between voters and those seeking power. A large proportion of voters see election promises the same way. Break too many, and trust evaporates. But politics is not a motionless pursuit. Just like all of our lives, circumstances change. Sometimes, good government requires changing course when evidence emerges that the promise you made will not be as beneficial to the majority of punters as first thought. Therefore, the real test is not whether a promise is broken, but why.

Tasmania's abandoned TasInsure model is a textbook example of when breaking a promise is not only acceptable but also responsible. Suppose you take partisan glasses off and look at the circumstances. The Rockliff government went to the 2025 election promising a state-owned insurer to compete directly with the private market. It was a flagship pledge. Yet after commissioning respected insurance expert John Trowbridge, his advice was blunt: such a venture would be high-risk, high-cost, and highly unlikely to deliver.

What, then, should a government do? March ahead with a flawed idea simply because it was printed on a corflute? Of........

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