strong>TASMANIAN Greens leader Nick McKim has rejected an offer from Premier David Bartlett to join the Labor cabinet, causing concern for further post-election instablity.
Mr Bartlett had offered Mr McKim a position on the front bench after the March 20 election delivered a hung parliament.
Mr McKim said the Greens’ party room had decided that having only one Greens member in cabinet was unacceptable.
“It fails to provide for stable government in the current circumstances,” he told reporters in Hobart on Saturday.
ABC Online: Greens reject Bartlett’s ‘absurd’ Cabinet offer
The Tasmanian Greens Leader says it was absurd for the state’s Labor Government to offer his party only one Cabinet position.
The Greens say the power-sharing offer would not have brought stable government.
It was an historic offer, but in the end not enough. The Greens Leader Nick McKim says his party won 5 seats at last month’s election, half Labor’s 10, but was offered only a tiny fraction of Labor’s representation in Cabinet.
Mr McKim says he believed the negotiations were conducted in good faith but he could not agree to the deal.
He says that was a mathematical absurdity, and did not reflect the will of Tasmanian voters.
“Certainly I think that one member, potentially isolated, unable to consult on difficult Cabinet issues, which certainly I would expect to arise from time to time or even more often than that, would’ve made it very difficult,” he said.
Mr McKim says the issue, and others, could have been sorted out had the Premier David Bartlett not set such a tight deadline of tomorrow morning for an answer.
But the Greens are still hopeful with Mr McKim saying he has asked the Premier to advise him by noon tomorrow whether the Government will make a revised offer.
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ABC Online, Sunday: No second Greens minister: Bartlett
The Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett has ruled out offering a second Cabinet post to the Greens.
Late yesterday the Greens Leader Nick McKim rejected the offer of a Cabinet position with the Labor minority government, saying he was holding out for at least two Greens ministers.
This morning the Premier has ruled that out, saying he would not have considered a second Greens position until the first one had been tested.
“We’ve got to walk before we can run here,” Mr Bartlett said.
“This is the most significant political development in Cabinet terms in Tasmania in decades.”
Mr Bartlett says he is disappointed Mr McKim declined his invitation, but believes they can still work together to provide a stable government.
The Premier will now press ahead with forming a Cabinet, saying it is time to get on with business.
The new Cabinet will be sworn in on Wednesday.
A short time ago Mr Bartlett left Tasmania, bound for the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra, where the Rudd Government’s controversial health funding proposal will be thrashed out.
Read more HERE
Letter to D Bartlett_N McKim_17Apr2010.pdf
