IS TASMANIAN history repeating itself?
1989 saw a massive fight over a pulp mill.
1989 saw the end of an era — the Robin Gray-spend-like-there-is-no-tomorrow philosophy of executive government.
The end of the two-headed Tasmanian leadership philosophy — that is, be so closely aligned with big business mates that you are indistinguishable from them.
Who will ever forget Robin’s 1989 recall of Parliament? — announcing the recall on North Broken Hill letterhead (Remember North was the principle Wesley Vale mill proponent). It would be too absurd to be believed if it wasn’t true.
Then Robin attempted to weather the accusations that State Parliament had been prostrated to the demands of the developers.
Now we have the Labor government of Paul Lennon, whose throwback 1950s style of governance with its occasional Eastern Europe overtones, makes Robin look positively cuddly.
And we have another pulp mill fight — equally ugly with the ground rules changing, the nature of the beast changing and the State Government as gleefully cosying up to the proponent and spruiking it for all it’s worth — at least Robin didn’t pay for a bloody bus with the twee slogan, The Future is Green.
And at the end of the day we are all left with the sneaking suspicion that it’s not really Paul calling the shots, but John and Greg and Michael, and though Paul is the sizeable star of the day, as Humphrey B. Bear is of his half hour, we all know that the big blobs are not the same thing as the producers of the show.
So, like Robin, Paul and his faithful Labor acolytes are equally prey to the accusation of prostration to the whim of powerful business — be it Gunns, Federal Hotels (most sacandalously that bloody pokies deal, Read here), or Lang Walker breezing into town with Richo in the Walker Corp executive jet to whisper in the ear of Paul that the Gold Coast should be transplanted to Ralphs Bay.
In 1989, the ushering in of Michael Field Labor and the evolution of the Labor-Green Accord saw a period of quite extraordinary promise, much realised.
It also saw the revelation of Robin’s skeletons … those years of excess which no less an eminent analyst than ANZ Bank economist Saul Eslake recently described conservatively as “spendthrift ” (Saul Eslake).
The cost of the spendthrift Gray government
And who can forget the cost of that spendthrift Gray government — Tasmania wallowing in recession and stagnation through the 1990s as the rest of Australia experienced it greatest boom in it shistory.
And so one wonders what skeletons await if Paul is consigned to history in the election Hag tips will be called before the end of the year.
Would a new government discover that a steady hand had been at the tiller of our state? Or would it be revealed that what we had experienced over the last several years was not so much a government as a chequebook facility for mates overdrawn on the future of Tasmania? Has this been a government at all, or just a pack of standover merchants, who occasionally paid out to cover up the big problems they never had either the courage nor ability to address?
And how many schools might have to close and hospital beds be cut and services be slashed as they were in the early 90s to pay for these excesses?
Meanwhile though, the electorate is unconvinced about Rene, and tensions are rising in a Liberal Party that can sense the possibility of victory. Labor is on the nose. Government, it seems, is there for the Libs to grasp, save for the hapless Rene, who looks like one of the Three Stooges and sounds even worse, indistinguishable from Lennon in everything save diction, routinely struggling to get several clauses in the correct order in the same sentence as a sentiment expressed by John Gay yesterday.
Hag thinks the Government is right to be rejoicing over Rene, but Michael Aird’s recent press release highlighting the growing tension between Hidding and likely leader to be Will Hodgman is an act of typical Labor stupidity.
When you only have Humphrey B Bear on offer why try and decapitate as his rival Mo? The ALP would be better served seeking to place Rene on a retainer for his services to the light on the hill.
One last intruiging point of comparison between 1989 and 2005: who can forget how then five Greens were elected, largely out of grassroots disgust with both major parties and their collusion with big business. In consequence parliament and not corporations for a few short years governed Tasmania. In 2005 Denison is a possible two seats for the Greens, as is Franklin if the Government pushes ahead with the Walker Corporation plans for Ralphs Bay. And as opposition continues to grow in the north to the pulp mill, the question arises as to how this discontent will express itself electorally.
So: have poor John and Greg and Michael any choice now but to send Humphrey B. Bear as quickly as possible to the polls?
Before people switch off the television and start looking outside, beyond the burnoff smogs, smelling the gathering stench of the pulp mill, seeing the rising bills for a gas pipeline that no-one can access, a ship no-one uses, a dam no expert wants, the little bloke going under to make way for another state supported Federal Hotels project, Woolworths bottle shop, Gunns plantation — and before they start asking the biggest question of all: how many of our tomorrows will have to be paid for their mistakes of today?
HAGNOTE: A very cheeky Pollywatcher sent this satirical par to Hag to mark the retirement of Sue MacKay:
Senator Sue Mackay announced her own turnover this afternoon. “There was no-one else left,” Senator Mackay said. Senator Mackay was known in Canberra for a fascinating inability to retain staff and is rumoured to have turned over more staff than any other member of parliament in the past nine years. “I just ran out of people to turnover,” she said “it was clear to me it was my turn”. The Senator denied that her resignation — which came exactly one month after she became due for a full pension — had influenced her decision in any way at all.
