There’s some good coverage of the South Australian and Tasmanian elections from Luke Walladge and Kate Crowley respectively at New Matilda today. In Inside Story, Brian Costar and Jennifer Curtin take a comprehensive look at the precedents for written agreements guaranteeing minority governments, a very timely topic given the negotiations that will take place between the Tasmanian Liberals and Greens.
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The negotiations betweeen the Libs and Greens are going to be fascinating. I imagine that one of the baseline demands in any agreement from the Greens would be relating to logging and forestry. And their position is directly at odds with both the major parties. Any deal however has to involve a confidence and supply agreement. Otherwise Tassie is stuffed.
No need to worry in Tasmania, I would say. The term of government will be over by the time they have finished counting the votes.
Sounds from what I read also, in the link, that passed experience of taking on government in this situation has lead to a poor electoral results immediately afterwards.
Neither Labor or Liberal would be wise to put their hand up, if they are thinking in the long term.
The interesting thing to know is what the two party preferred vote was in Tas. It would seem that the answer to this question is a more democratic way of determining who should be the government. It might be even fairer if the decision took account of all three two party preferred results – the answer might support the idea that a majority of tassies supported a green government to either of the other choices.
Apart from that I cant see the logic of Labor offering to support a right wing government when both Labor and the Greens are allegedly to the left of the Liberals. If Bartlet doesn’t want to work with the Greens perhaps he should stand aside and give someone else a go?
Good coverage? Ya reckon? It reads like he’s channeling Eddie McGuire. Isobel Redmond “tapped the keg” + footie analogies? Seriously?
Luke Walladge, Pat Conlon hasn’t been Emergency services Minister for about half a decade. Vicki Chapman “refused to rule out a challenge”…really?
John D said “The interesting thing to know is what the two party preferred vote was in Tas. It would seem that the answer to this question is a more democratic way of determining who should be the government.”
Hmmm… Not quite JD. The best way to determine who is to form government is to follow three hundred years of Westminster parliamentary convention. The decision as to who forms government is thrashed out in the House of Assembly. Whoever can gain the confidence of the House is invited by the Governor to form government.
Just because the Liberals and Labor had a cosy deal between them that whoever got the most votes would be the next government doesn’t mean it has to bind anyone else. Richard Farmer makes the point that something like 60% of Tasmanians voted for a left of centre government. It’s a bit of a stretch expecting the Greens to support a Liberal Party that has been infiltrated with Eric Abetz’s Right Wing Uglies just because the Liberals and Labor think they should.
However, I suspect the Liberals will make a deal with the Greens. Labor has (to quote Richard Flanagan) ran the state like a branch of the BLF the past twelve years. They have treated the Greens with contempt. They have pushed policies that might have been designed specifically to antagonise them. As far as the Greens are concerned, the Liberals couldn’t be any worse.
What I found funny is the way small states are reported as though they were big states. In a state like SA – where there are only 47 lower house MPs – it only takes a few unpopular MPs to land either party in trouble.
And in Tassie, I think many of us are scratching our heads trying to work out how two parties of the left – who combined have at least 14 out of the 25 seats in the lower house – aren’t preparing to form government. Even with a 7% swing towards the Libs, Tasmanians still overwhelmingly reject the Liberal Party.
I think Joe2 might be on the money.
Will Hodgman used his ‘victory’ speech to re-affirm the Liberal Party’s commitment to the Gunn’s Pulp Mill. A completely unnecessary and provocative move.
The Pulp Mill is dead in the water, not because of any lack of political will, but pure and simply because of economic circumstances and John Gay’s questionable business conduct.
It’s interesting that Labor should state categorically that they refuse to have anything to do with the Greens, and yet the Liberals, who say they will deal with Greens, use their first opportunity to re-assert their position on a highly controversial issue.
I imagine the first cab off the rank, will be to pass the State Budget, and then the next thing will be votes of “no confidence” flying everywhere…!
Yes, well, Erica Betz happens to live here in Hobart. His happy-go-lucky, affable style goes down here a real treat!
John, the company does the polling here in Tasmania is EMRS.
In their February 2010 survey of “voter intentions” the percentage breakdown was as follows:
Labor (23%)
Liberal (30%
Green (22%)
Independant(2%)
Undecided (23%)
The full reports can be downloaded here….
http://www.emrs.com.au/
Ginja @ 5 wonders why 2 parties of the left can’t form government. One reason could be that the the Labor party is of the left but left no more. The other reason, the clue given to me by David Horton, could be that the dominant Tassie unions are anti-environmental. This would be at the root of Labor’s behavior towards the Greens. Does that sound fair Reb of Hobart?
@ Furious,
If you don’t like the tone, that’s your choice. But Isobel Redmond looked suspicously like what my grandfather would call ‘drink taken’ in her non-concession concession speech. And if she sounds like that all the time, God help the 51.1% of people who voted for her.
As for Pat Conlon, blame the major media outlets who also labeled him as such.
I admit to being askew in my predictions – I thought the Liberals would do better in the marginals. Full credit to Labor on the result (excepting the pseudo-Family First business, of course, although I don’t think that decided it).
Anyway, I used to like The Footy Show
Actually, Vickie Chapman ruled out a challenge in the course of the coverage, in answer to a question from the ABC’s Ian Henschke.
I wonder if it’s defamatory to say someone was p*ssed if they weren’t.
From what I’ve seen of Tassie politics, you’ve basically got the Greens and Gunns at either end of the spectrum and Labor and Liberal jostling eachother to get as far to the centre as possible.
I reckon all the Tassie party leaders should assemble under the beady gaze of the electorate and the media at Salamanca Place and play best of five two-up to see who gets to be lead partner in a coalition government. Either that or bring back “The Ring”.
Now I think about it, it’s hard not to see the Australian political factional system as an psychological extension of weird 19th century convict suicide pacts.
“I reckon all the Tassie party leaders should assemble under the beady gaze of the electorate and the media at Salamanca Place…”
No, no. Port Arthur.
Indeed PC. I believe Vicki Chapman refuted the idea of a challenge fairly quickly. Also, Isobel Redmond has said she doesn’t drink alcohol.
Luke, re: Conlon, since not that many changes happen here in SA, it shouldn’t be that hard to keep up.
Maybe she was just tired and emotional… Whatever the case, I certainly wasn’t the only one to wonder out loud if she’d enjoyed a calming red or three.
As for Chapman, I was referring to an instance earlier in the week; if interviews during the count affect the poll, there are more serious issues at work than a drink or two
Did anyone else see Today Tonight in Adelaide last night. What a hoot!! The bile duct was sliced open and gushing forth in a manner you’ll rarely see. The TT of M.Chant., R.Phillips and numerous other smears was accusing Labor of dirty tricks re.FF behaviour. It was backed up by the usual crowd of holier-than-thou academics and pseudo editors. As someone who likes to collect newspapers the day after elections (if they go the right way!!) I really should of taken a copy of this. Highly recommended, five stars.
Not to be defending trash television in any shape or form, FFreddy, and of course I take your point about TT hypocrisy — but it was dirty tricks, all the same. I’m glad I didn’t vote for them; it saves me being ashamed.
Salient Green #10, it’s worth recalling that in the early 1980s the dominant unions in Tasmania, and all but two members of the State Labor Caucus, voted to support the Gordon below Franklin Dam and made the position of Premier Doug Lowe (who supported the Gordon above Olga Dam compromise which would have only affected the wilderness at the margins and left the Franklin intact) completely untenable. As I said on another thread, that issue produced a polarisation in Tasmanian politics with the Greens and tehir precursors on one side and much of the ALP and the unions on the other, and the mindset in Tasmanian Labor which thought the Gordon below Franklin Dam was a wonderful idea has not yet gone away.
Just on the FF ‘how to votes’, it’s a tactic Labor has used before – in the 1993 federal election (and possibly in others), when ‘Green’ how to votes were handed out by Labor campaigners. They’re not illegal because they don’t purport to be the how to votes of the other party, and claim to appeal to ‘Green’ or ‘Family Values’ voters, but they’re obviously unethical. I suspect Bruce Hawker, who ran the SA marginals campaign, is the common thread.
I should add that a lot of Labor members and supporters vehemently reject the tactic. I personally refused to hand them out as a booth worker in 1993, and I wasn’t alone.
Lindsay Tanner mentioned on ABC radio this morning that he had been asked, years back, to hand out dodgy how to vote cards by party reps but had declined. He said that he is now quite glad he did.
Energy and Resources Minister of Victoria Peter Batchelor claimed he had not been involved in dealings similar to those in S.A. since electoral laws relating to those matters are different in his state. Whatever that means.
Hmmm, I think the Labor Party should hand out dodgy how to votes for people “who support liberal values”. The beauty of this is that it might not just fool the tradies who think themselves God’s gift to free enterprise but also the classical liberal types who worship Edmund Burke.
Mark #21, by 1998 it had reached the point where one Labor campaign manager in that year’s Federal election thought it was a good idea to produce similar HTVs appealing to One Nation voters. As I don’t always have kind words for the AWU and the associated ALP faction, I must in fairness point out that (a) the person responsible for these cards was not from that faction and (b) the two individuals who most demonstratively refused to hand them out were both AWU members.
I forgot to mention that the Today Tonight piece also included at one point a solemn Lord Dolly Downer, in a shot so close up you couldn’t see his greying curlylocks, declaring that the Labor party should be ashamed of themselves for using such deceitful tactics. Pure goldust!!
Well, so they should. What’s your point, exactly?
Has anybody actually named whoever was responsible for this cheap scam yet? I would have expected TT to be falling all over themselves to find the culprit so they could jam their foot in his door and their big fluffy mics up his nose and bellow stupid questions at him*.
*Pronoun choice deliberate — I bet it wasn’t a woman.
Dr Cat, did you notice that Leon Bignell accepted the offer of dodgy FF fliers from head office ( my guess is it’s down to Michael Brown and Bruce Hawker) and his girlfriend was photographed handing them out? By contrast, Chloe Fox and Tom Kenyon declined to use them on principle (no surprise to anyone who knows either of them ) even though it’s likely to cost Chloe her seat
Yep, as I said @21, I’d be very surprised if it weren’t Bruce Hawker’s idea.
Joe2 #22, I seem to recall that Peter Batchelor was responsible for the use of a similar tactic aimed at Nuclear Disarmament Party voters in a by-election in Victoria in 1985.
Indeed, I recall correctly.
So, the Richo School of Political Moral Philosophy still rools, eh?
*Sigh*
CP, no, missed the Leon Bignell thing, though my understanding is that SA Labor WAGS do what they’re told. But as you say, no surprises re Kenyon and Fox.
Now that you mention it, PC @ 30, the lad who was handing the Fake Family Fist how-to-votes out where I was bore a passing resemblance to Richo. Give him about 15 years, and he’ll be there.
Bignell apparently has ‘no regrets’ even though he insists he would have won without FF prefs. He initially said he knew nothing about it, even though his partner was handing out fake FF how to vote cards. Urgh.
The handing out of cards ritual is stupid anyway. Each booth has the official how to vote cards in them, I reckon if this is an example of modern political ethics, they should just ban the practice of handing out how to vote cards altogether.
Well there you go Paul@29. No wonder the batch was a bit sheepish after the Lindsay dob in. Most interesting, thank you.
St Furious, my feet would be thrilled if I never handed out how-to-votes again. They’re OK now, but Saturday night and Sunday was a struggle.
It was a stupid tactic, make no mistake, for the very reason I disagree it could have cost Chloe the seat.
FF represent less than 5% of the vote. Of these, a surprising proportion preference Labor ANYWAY, regardless of what the HTV card says. Clearly FF voters have their own reasons for voting that way and are not swayed by the Party’s official card.
After the statistical returns are in, we can see how many FF preferences flowed to Labor and compare that with the last few elections; my bet is it will only involve a handful of votes – if any.