Labor wins the battle in Tasmania, but the war has just begun
After a long and bloody battle, Tasmania’s election finally has finally come to an end, with the Greens giving shock 11th hour support to Labor yesterday, and Governor Peter Underwood granting his blessing last night, to return a minority Labor government in Tasmania.
Who’d have expected Tasmania to provide one of the most gripping and exciting state election battles in recent years? This one had it all: backstabbing, dirty politics, suspense, robots, Gunns, single transferable vote proportional representation…
But the election may have just been round one: Liberal leader Will Hodgman has already slammed the new government as one built on “deceit and lies”, accused the Greens of selling out, and has threatened to move a motion of no-confidence:
“In their lust for power, [the Greens have] sold out to the Labor party, soundly beaten at the election and have offered unconditional support – so when I said a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor, I was right.”
“[Mr Bartlett is] forming an illegitimate government with the support of the Greens – Tasmanians now have a Labor-Green government that is built on lies.”
Stay tuned: it looks like this one might be just heating up.
Please login below to comment, OR simply register here :
Thank you for registering, we have just sent you a confirmation email, which includes your new password to be entered below.
Jeez boohoo Will, maybe a pragmatic, professional and adult negotiation with the Greens would have given you a different result. I mean, a man’s gotta know his limitations.
Now all you’ve got left is an empty threat of a no confidence motion that has gone down before it even gets moved. childish footstomping again from the libs. rabble.
Hodgman on local ABC radio this morning put some more flesh on the bone of his contention that Bartlett has broken his promises and commitments.
Hodgman quoted from transcripts in which Bartlett did more than promise to offer the Libs first opportunity to govern in the case of the vote turning out how it eventually did. Bartlett, Hodgman read, said that the Libs would be offered government and be offered it in the only place it really mattered: on the floor of the house. Can anyone confirm this?
But one key complication that follows from this aspect of Bartlett’s pledge, is that the Guv’nor must commission the premier on the basis that they have the confidence of the house. Did Hodgman have such confidence? One could reasonably assume that Bartlett was also promising that the ALP would not move no-confidence in a Hodgman premiership. This, however, is only an assumption and not an explicit pledge. McKim tried to flush out this assumption, but it was not confirmed by Bartlett.
Hodgman’s beef now seems to be that Bartlett promised to give him a conditional confidence on the floor of the house, and to advise the Guv of this. Bartlett didn’t promise this, as far as I can see, which demonstrates how well he has played this rubber, for without such a promise the Guv’nor had to commission a premier on the basis of a confidence that neither side had until McKim played his hand.
Hodgman’s accusation that the Greens and Labor are in an illegitimate alliance and the government is based on lies and deceit has limited force once you take the role of the Guv into account. It’s probable the Hodgman is playing the long-term game, seeking opposition on the basis of a moral high ground he can stand on when the next election comes.
I don’t think the basis of his accusation is as strong as he contends.
I love this sh*t!
If I were a betting Doctor, I would put my money on an official offer being put by Libs to the Greens.
They are gagging for government….
If the Green Labor “arangement” blows up and brings a majority liberal administration at the next election, it will be a masterstroke. If not, Hodgman will go down as one of the most foolish and naieve leaders in history.
Quite a fine line.
Imaginative nickname: Lib majority?, Thats never going to happen, also the Libs and Greens are like oil and water.
1943pc
If as you suggest, the Libs can never gain a majority of the votes and seats, I guarantee they will learn to play nice with the Greens. They will not sit in eternal opposition. Oil and water be damned.
The problem with this idea is that it cannot happen constitutionally. The House can vote a motion of “no confidence” in a Premier, but the House cannot elect or approve a replacement – that is solely up to the Governor. So if the House votes “no Confience” in Bartlett, he would go to the Governore and resign , and it is then up to the Governor to appoint a replacement, who then would also have to test their own support in the House.
So in the end the Governor makes the decision, not Parliament.
The Libs and the Greens are only like oil and water if you regard the Greens as psuedo-Marxist hippies and the Libs as pure Tories. Some would agree with this assessment, but the reality seems to me to be far more complex. Many Greens voters preference the Liberals, and many ‘doctors wives’ type voters swing between the two parties. The Libs would be fools not to find at least some common ground with the Greens in Tasmania.
The 10-10-5 split meant that the Greens needed to be included in any deal for government. All Hodgeman had to do was give McKim a ring and sort something out, after all McKim said on a number of occasions that he was willing to negotiate. The Greens would naturally favour any party that didn’t have Eric Abetz in it, so it had to be Labor. My hope as a Tasmanian, is that the Greens can overcome their negativity and be for something for a change. There are 4 freshers in Labors team so the Greens will have to be given some Ministerial responsibility. Lets see how they go.
Many Greens voters preference the Liberals, and many ‘doctors wives’ type voters swing between the two parties.
Are there any data to support that? I’d like to believe it’s true, but I suspect the hippies VS Tories perception still dictates voting patterns.
When I scrutineered, I saw many, many votes 1st Lib, 2nd Green, and vice versa. Lots of us voted for people, not parties this time.
Ancho, I love you for saying ‘Are there any data’
Sancho
The stronger than usual Green-Lib vote was especially evident in Bass, where with one Liberal and three Labor candidates left in the race, the Liberal got 47% of those votes that did not exhaust.
I have also seen a calculation that this 53/47 ALP/Lib split was the same for votes that left the Green ticket (and went somewhere) in general. These are probably not a representative sample of Green votes generally but the usual perceptions that cause Greens to usually preference Labor appear to be breaking down at state level.
The government is not appointed by the parliament ; it is appointed by the Governer, who is the Queen’s representative.
It is the responsibility of the Governer to appoint a government which is the most stable.
The Greens said they would not vote against a no confidence motion against the Liberals, but not say that for Labor.
I believe this was a “play”.
The Liberals were keen to form government, but Labor said it was quite willing to lose it.
This meant the Liberals were more likely to negotiate, so the Greens forced their hand.
As they failed to make an arrangement, the Governer had no choice but to choose the more stable Labor government.
The people claiming the Greens and the Liberals would not form a coalition appear to be unaware that this is precisely what they have done in the past.
Tasmania uses a discredited semi-proportional representation system. The Hare[Clark last bundle. It is not a one vote one value counting system. Only the last bundle is used to determine the allocation of surplus preferences. It is a system designed in the early 20th century. It was designed to facilitate a manual count and is not “proportional”. It seriously distorts the outcome of the election is outdated and should be replaced.
The 2007 Queensland election produced the wrong result. The Greens Larisa Waters should have been elected to the sixth Senate seat. She only lost due to the distortion in the way the vote is counted. Why have the Greens remains quite about this fact?
The Tasmanian system is not much better
Tasmania should adopt Meek or the Wright system of counting the vote. The Wright system is a reiterative count designed to eliminate the distortions in the current counting system. On every exclusion the count is reset and recounted until all positions are filling in one iteration. One vote one value. Full proportional representation at work
Please login below to comment, OR simply register here :
Thank you for registering, we have just sent you a confirmation email, which includes your new password to be entered below.