PETER TUCKER From here

As Sue Neales points out ( HERE ), having family members work in a political office is not, of itself, necessarily wrong. For example, I witnessed first-hand (we had adjacent offices in the same Murray Street building) how well Bruce Goodluck and his daughter, Kathryn, worked together when Bruce was an independent member in the state parliament in 1997.

Bruce had a reputation for running, carried over from his Federal member days, in essence a social service office, even to the extent that agencies such as charities and local government, and even at times state services, would refer people to the Goodlucks because of their reputation for getting results, particularly in housing and health.

Bruce and Kathryn had a synergy that few other employer/employee relationships could replicate because Kathryn understood Bruce’s motives and needs completely – and boy, did they both work hard. I can pretty well guarantee Bruce never ran a “due process” to employ Kathryn, but I am convinced that that office could not have run better than it did.

BUT, as I have said 1,000 times (it seems) politics is a game of perceptions, and it is the perceptions that need to be managed. If politics, as life, was about right and wrong the world would be a vastly different place. But it isn’t, so politicians must learn to read the public mood at all times. And public mood changes, sometimes in large dollops and sometimes imperceptibly – but shift it does and woe betide a politician who does not read those shifts.

So what is acceptable and not acceptable is CONTINGENT on the prevailing public mood. It is also contingent on the circumstances of the pollie in question. What might be OK for an independent like Goodluck may not be alright for a party member or for a minister. One rule does not fit all because the public, rightly, sets different parameters for different parliamentarians.

From David Bartlett’s actions in recently freezing politicians’ wages and conditions, cutting down of travel and entertainment expenses, and hauling in the public sector, I can see, I think, that he does understand the public is extremely sensitive to any perception that politicians are feathering their own nests or otherwise indulging in any self-serving extravagance.

Again, please note, this is not necessarily actual self-serving extravagance we are talking about, but the percetion of it. That is what has to be managed. Dean Jaensch in his book Elections! How and Why Australians Vote opined that the “main component” of Australian political culture has long been “a combination of apathy towards politics, and a scepticism, even a cynicism, towards its institutions and political actors”. And Tim Costello said a decade ago:

Huge numbers of the electorate are now so convinced that politicians only lie that they have not just become cynical, they’ve actually lost any connection to the political process. They don’t follow it, don’t read about it. They say, ‘Well of course they only lie, so why should I follow it?

So the sensitivity of voters to everything a politician does is NO SECRET. That’s why, for the life of me, I can’t understand how Mr Bartlett let it come to this. He would have known about Ms Ritchie’s family staffing situation and blind Freddie could have foreseen the possible consequences. So what did he think would happen if he thrust Ms Ritchie back into the spotlight? We wouldn’t notice?

Sometimes I wonder who is pulling the strings in the premier’s inner sanctum. I am left with two main possibilities in this case: either (1) David Bartlett knew full-well this might blow-up but was somehow forced or felt impelled not to fix Richie’s staffing situation and to promote her; or (2) his political judgement and radar is so off-beam that he didn’t read the public mood or the potential for events to unfold as they have.

Without any doubt I believe David Bartlett should have sorted out Ms Ritchie’s staffing issues months ago. I can’t come up with a creditable reason why he didn’t. An Auditor-General investigation into a member of his own government is nothing short of bizarre.

So we have a rare by-election in Tasmania for Ritchie’s Pembroke seat. The successful candidate will serve out the remainder of the term which expires in May 2013. It may be that Labor does not field an officially endorsed candidate for fear that the electors might be in the mood to deliver a message to the party in a context where government is not on the line. I will write a more complete item over the next few weeks. Just to note that if a non-Labor candidate is returned, it will mark a significant decline in Labor’s presence in the Legislative Council. Just a few years ago they had five members and considered themselves a reasonable chance of gaining control of the Council – just three more seats would have done it. But after the Pembroke by-election, they could be reduced to just three of the 15 seats, with all holding a place in Cabinet. Michael Aird as Treasurer, Lin Thorp as Human Services Minister, and Doug Parkinson as Leader of the Government in the Upper House.