The tally room floor

THE four week campaign leading up to the Tasmanian election on Saturday was an all out affair, with missiles lobbed in all directions. Many polls predicted a cliff hanger, with minority Labor government the most likely result.

Such was the build-up that media representatives from all major players were in the tally room in Hobart and the ABC’s Antony Green and Maxine McKew chose to be in Hobart, rather than in Adelaide for the SA election. But the media contingent were in for a tame time: from very early on it became clear that Labor would win a majority, with the Greens suffering a drubbing.

It was quiet in the tally room until about 9.30pm, when it filled with people arriving to hear victory/concession speeches by the three party leaders. First was Liberal leader Rene Hidding, whereupon a phalanx of Greens supporters raised Greens’ Triangles. Hidding made a dignified speech and congratulated Lennon, but some of the Greens’ supporters started to heckle him.

Next, was Greens leader Peg Putt. Putt made a defiant speech, proclaiming it to be the grubbiest of campaigns, and was all but drowned out by people yelling abuse and booing loudly. Police officers moved onto the floor and for an electric moment, it felt as there would be a brawl at any minute.

Crikey was in the midst of it, and saw people booing, anger unleashed, with a look of delirious joy on their faces. Crikey asked one man, a member of the Australian Workers Union, if he was a union official, only to be told: “It’s none of your business, madam”.

Crikey spied former (minority) Labor Premier Michael Field getting into action in the crowd. Field was the Premier in the Labor-Green Accord of 1989-92. We rang him this morning and he said he’d said “a couple of things” because Putt’s speech invited interjection; she had misread the crowd.

“I spoke out,” Field told us. “It was an appalling speech. It wasn’t defiant, it was bitter and vitriolic. Full of paranoia. Peg didn’t accept any responsibility for the result. It disturbed me. You can say I interjected, but the yelling was from two Braddon blokes behind me.”

Last was Paul Lennon, who arrived to thunderous applause. There was a roar: “We want Paul, we want Paul.” Greens’ triangles were held aloft behind him — for the benefit of the cameras — but it was Lennon’s night and his supporters were wild with delight.

And, a Christian Kerr observation from Crikey:

The Greens are a bunch of whingeing frauds. Whingeing frauds who don’t know much about politics. We’ve just seen a repeat in Tasmania of exactly the same thing we saw at the 2004 federal election – and over the Tasman in the Kiwi poll last year. They’ve talked up their results. The polls have looked good. And they’ve flopped on election day.

Let’s deal with the frauds bit first. The Greens public pitch is based on the reasonable proposition that as this is the only planet we have to live on; we have to look after it. This is manifested as an appeal to middle-class shrub hugging and guilt on a few voguish social issues.

Behind this, though, is a heap of very odd looking baggage. And when voters have their attention drawn to what else the Greens stand for – what the Greens really stand for – support evaporates.

And the politics? In today’s Australian Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt blames the drop in their vote from 22 per cent in a poll four weeks ago to 16 per cent on Saturday on the “grubbiest, most vicious” smear campaign in Tasmanian political history.

Well, whackos love conspiracy theories – but why doesn’t Putt ask Gary Morgan or any other pollster about what they think keeps happening to the Greens.

They’ll probably suggest that undecided voters nominate the Greens when pollsters talk to them as it sounds better than a dunno. They’ll also probably add that negative campaigning against the Greens – like we saw from all sides in Tasmania – locks in support behind the major parties. The Green vote collapses. The undecideds are frightened. And they’ll also tell you that Tasmania is the perfect microcosm, the perfect test-market, to prove the truth of this argument. Just look at the results.

Greens are big on limits on growth. Why won’t they admit that there are limits on what they can poll?