All over bar the shouting MATT DENHOLM TASMANIA CORRESPONDENT THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 14, 2014 LABOR governments are the norm in Tasmania but the former island stronghold is poised to turn on its “natural party of government” with unprecedented savagery at tomorrow’s state election. So low have Labor’s stocks fallen, after 16 years in power, that some polls suggest it may even cede official opposition status to the Greens, led by Nick McKim. Newspoll suggests that outcome is unlikely, but only just, and the mere fact it is exercising Labor minds is illustrative of the extent of the rot for the ALP in the Apple Isle. The Liberals, led by Will Hodgman, are sitting on 53 per cent of the vote and should easily win majority government. If achieved tomorrow, the vote would be the party’s highest for more than two decades. While votes don’t necessarily convert to seats in proportional representation elections in the Hare-Clark system, the Liberals appear likely to pick up as many as five seats, to hold 14 or 15 in the 25-seat House of Assembly. Labor, on 23 per cent, appears unlikely to hold more than six of its present 10 seats. The Greens, meanwhile, are on track to retain four or five of their present five MPs, despite a slump in primary vote from 21 per cent at the 2010 election to 16 per cent. Newspoll suggest the new kid on the block, the Palmer United Party, is unlikely to gain a toehold in Tasmania. However, in the past 24 hours, national PUP leader Clive Palmer has opened his substantial pockets for a last-minute advertising blitz. For Labor, the forecast devastation is shocking in scale, almost certainly assigning it to opposition for several terms, but is hardly unexpected. Things started to sour for Labor after the resignation and death from cancer of popular premier Jim Bacon in 2004. During the following decade the party steadily lost support, amid the scandal-scarred Paul Lennon years, the collapse in the state’s finances under the weight of the global downturn, economic stagnation and, most recently, four years of power-sharing with the Greens. Tasmanians have stuck with Labor through it all. But with the nation’s highest unemployment and record budget deficits, their patience is at an end. Labor’s campaign strategy — calling for voters swinging towards the Liberals to “Think Again” — appears to have fallen on deaf ears. If punters did think again, they soon decided to stick with the notion of change. Also underwhelming voters has been Labor’s focus on federal issues, with negative campaigning on the Coalition’s changes to the National Broadband Network, National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Schoolkids Bonus and Gonski education funding. Even Labor’s strong suit — a scare campaign based on Hodgman’s plans to cut at least 500 public servants and strip $500million from spending — has failed to resonate outside the public service capital of Hobart. Hodgman’s Liberals arguably HAVE made more mistakes this campaign. The leader bizarrely decided it was OK to sneak out of the state in the middle of the campaign to attend a Bruce Springsteen concert in Sydney. On the same trip, his push for a full fibre rollout of the NBN in Tasmania was initially rebuffed with brutal jocularity by federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Hodgman has been rubbery, too, on the scale of his planned non-frontline public-sector job cuts, given his promise to hire more nurses and police. And some of his nominated savings are vague or misleading. However, Labor is left fuming that none of its messages — or the Liberals’ blunders — appear to have gained traction. Based on its own polling, Labor had expected its decision in January to dump its power-sharing alliance with the Greens to add 3 per cent to 4 per cent to its statewide vote. The idea was to woo back some of its disaffected faithful. Instead, voters seem to have seen through the divorce as a desperate political act on the eve of an election. Worse, by dumping the alliance, Labor undermined its ability to sell its central achievement of the past four years: providing a relatively stable government in difficult economic and political conditions. In the last days of campaigning, Labor has grown more desperate, campaigning for voters to at least grant it opposition status ahead of the Greens, by using robo-calls to attack its former power-sharing partners. Newspoll suggests the punters have simply stopped listening. They appear locked into a collective decision to give the Liberals a chance at proving themselves in government — and Labor an opportunity to rediscover its mojo in opposition. Labor is still hoping sufficient volatility exists to see enough of its supporters swing back tomorrow to leave the Liberals stranded on 12 seats — one seat short of a majority. “There are a lot of people out there who are undecided, who do not believe Will Hodgman’s $500m in promises, who are concerned about job cuts at a time when we need to grow jobs — and these are the people that I’m talking to in the last … hours,” Premier Lara Giddings tells The Australian. Tasmania’s five electorates each return five MPs under the Hare-Clark system. Presently, the pattern in all five electorates is two Labor, two Liberal, one Green. Labor’s best-case scenario is to hold the Liberals to 12 seats — one short of a majority — by retaining two seats in each of the electorates of Denison, Lyons and Franklin. (Labor has given up hope of winning two seats in Bass or Braddon.) Even if Labor did achieve this unlikely feat, the Liberals could be expected to do what they did in 1996: replace a leader unwilling to govern in minority with one who is willing to do so. Hodgman has promised to govern in majority or not at all, even if that means consigning Tasmania to a chaotic power-sharing government made up of a handful of Labor, Greens and perhaps PUP politicians. After the 1996 election, Liberal premier Ray Groom — who had made a “majority or nothing” pledge — resigned to allow the Liberals to govern with the Greens for more than two years under replacement leader Tony Rundle. Similarly, Hodgman may need to stand aside for leadership alternatives Peter Gutwein, Michael Ferguson or, ironically, Ray’s son, Matthew Groom. In any event, failure by Hodgman to secure government against the tide of expectation for a second, consecutive election would most likely be terminal for his leadership. The 44-year-old was narrowly pipped to the post at the 2010 election, when the Liberals won the largest share of the statewide vote but tied with Labor on 10 seats each. Labor’s then premier David Bartlett did a “deal with the devil”, to use his own terms, and shared power with the Greens; an arrangement retained by Giddings when she took the leadership in January 2011. Hodgman, a third-generation Liberal MP who has been Opposition Leader for almost eight years, won’t say if he will resign from the post if he fails for a second time. “I don’t think about failure; I don’t honestly contemplate it,” he tells The Australian. “I’m not contemplating not getting majority government.” For Labor, losing office after 16 years is no shame. To some extent it has been a victim of the global financial crisis, a high dollar and shrinking GST revenues. True, it has presided over a decline in manufacturing and forestry, but also a boom in new industries, particularly aquaculture, high-value niche agriculture and dairy. However, Giddings, 41, concedes the island is no longer an instinctively Labor state and that her party — among others — has to get used to a new volatility. “There is definitely a change from when I first stood (for parliament) in 1996,” she says. “It’s (now) more like 20 per cent rusted-on Liberal, 20 per cent rusted-on Labor and 60 per cent who will swing between Greens, Palmer United, independent, Liberal and Labor. “That means elections are harder-fought because you can’t rely on any base.” Newspoll suggests Labor’s parliamentary stocks could be so depleted the caucus will fit on a single sofa. There is a chance this rump will lose some of its best and brightest, making it harder to use opposition to retune its identity and rebuild its brand. In the unlikely event the Liberals fall just short of a majority — and stick to their “majority or nothing” pledge — Tasmania could find itself with a very minority Labor government, such as seven or eight Labor seats. It is hard to see how a party could effectively govern with such a small team. It would struggle to form a ministry and would have to rely on one or two other parties to pass every piece of legislation. It would live in daily fear of no confidence. It would be unlikely to achieve controversial reform or to make the kind of difficult decisions needed to tackle the state’s runaway deficits and growing debt. Most likely, such a government would not last long before being brought down by its foes on the floor of the house. The Liberals appear certain to be the clear winners tomorrow. However, if the vagaries of Hare-Clark, or Labor’s last-minute pleas, deny them a majority, there may only be multiple losers. Opposition Leader Will Hodgman on the boardwalk at Launcestons Royal Park. Picture: Chris Crerar Source: Supplied
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:49:34 +0000
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