The Liberal government has been in power for just over six months, so it’s time for an update on their progress. Turn away now if ugly isn’t your thing.
LEADERSHIP
The Premier, MrHodgman, is leader in name only. Harriss and Gutwein have their mugs all over the press, and are clearly setting and driving the Government’s agenda.
There is no vision.
Harriss is parlaying his intense aversion to anything ‘green’ into a series of ill-conceived, vindictive legislative abominations – serving up extreme measures in the first instance in the hope that apparent concessions will see everyone who doesn’t share his obsession with extractive industries, if not in gaol for a lengthy stretch, at least browbeaten into silence.
Gutwein is playing a similar game – slamming the unions and industrial relations protocols with a sledgehammer, with the intent that, beaten and bleeding, they will eventually plead for the big stick.
Hodgman is standing by, looking suitably concerned, and attending the required functions, but keeping his mouth firmly shut on the contentious stuff. I wonder – is he happy with the title of Premier? Does he know they only kept him on because of his name and his non-threatening persona, just to get them the election? Does he know he is only leader as long as the party needs a bland, unassuming front man?
FORESTRY
Open sores won’t heal if you keep picking off the scab. Forestry has been a purulent, weeping blight on the Tasmanian corpus for decades, and the powers that be in the Liberal Party are continuing to scrape at it incessantly, their fingers filthy with self-interest, and pathological hatred of environmentalists.
Mr Harriss has succeeded in repealing the Tasmanian Forests Agreement, but all the money gifted to the industry under the agreement has been kept. As they were constantly advised would happen, the ENGOs who signed on for the latest forestry peace process were comprehensively duped – they got nothing, and they are now an embarrassment to their members and to themselves.
There’s hubris, and then there’s hubris backed by rat cunning. The ENGOs wanted recognition as the citizens who rescued the forests. Harriss wants to be the saviour of the forest industry. The ENGOs were naïve lambs, led easily to the proverbial slaughter. Harriss, on the other hand, is something far more cunning and dangerous than the legendary shit house rodent – he’s a rat from the crapper dressed up as a respectable, powerful member of society.
In this capacity, MrHarriss’ best work has been the Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill. There’s a lot wrong with this legislation, and the Government has already back tracked from the iniquitous original version of the bill, but Mr Harriss still wants those ‘pesky’ forest and mining industry protesters to face the threat of massive fines and mandatory gaol time.
The anomaly between his prized legislative punishment of protesters, and the fact that those who kill and maim innocent others on our roads through their negligence are routinely granted the freedom to walk, and drive among us, unhindered by a stint in the big house, is totally lost on our forests messiah.
The bill is now before the Legislative Council, where it will no doubt be amended by each and every one of the grandstanding ‘independents’. The final version, when it surfaces, will be a nightmare – the Office of Parliamentary Counsel staff will all need a lengthy visit to an appropriately serene sanitarium in order to recover.
Harriss, though, will be confident that his Svengali like grip on the psyche of the Legislative Council remains intact, despite his absence, and they will eventually do his bidding.
THE PAY PAUSE
There’s no question the Labor Party left the state of Tasmania in dire financial straits after 16 years in government. Any opposition worth their salt would have closely observed their many failings over those years, and finally come to power with a solid plan to clean the accumulated shit from the fan and circulate the fresh scent of fiscal responsibility.
Today’s Liberal Government was not such an opposition.
Less than a year in and the best their perpetually cranky Treasurer can dream up is a Trojan horse ‘pay pause’ bill – one that looks like a solution to the glaring red budget bottom line, but in fact hides a massive assault on public service jobs.
There’s been pouting and petulance from the public sector unions, and thin-lipped steely resolve from Mr Gutwein – you know, the usual Liberal government/union stand-off – but the workers and the reality of hundreds of lost positions have been conveniently neglected.
At the turn of this century Tasmania, the least productive of the Australian states, became the recipient of a disproportionate per capita share of the shiny new Goods and Services Tax.
What became of this ongoing windfall? Was it spent on infrastructure, or innovative industries, or creating top quality health and education services?
No way!
This is Tasmania – home of a persistent, but socially crippling colonial-style class system – and the free cash was quickly appropriated by those of the ruling order.
The gifted largesse was spent on the creation of a huge, unnecessary public service, with overpaid jobs invented in their hundreds and bestowed on the worthy ones. Those same seat warming pen pushers with job titles like ‘policy development officer’, and ‘systems manager’ are now keeping the Tassie economy from taking a monumental dive.
They spend money in the stores, they buy expensive cars, they send their kids to private schools, they go on holidays, and they eat out.
Is Mr Gutwein really planning to cut their numbers, and pay out their entitlements and – gasp – their defined benefit super, if they managed to get on that gravy train?
Or will front line workers be the ones to go? You know, the people with useful, portable qualifications who can move elsewhere for work.
If the Liberals have thought about it, which I suspect they haven’t, we might end up with the favoured public servants still at their desks being paid several dollars per twiddle of the thumbs, the useful ones leaving in droves, and the Tasmanian public comprehensively screwed.
Let’s wait to see how this plays out, but it’s far from over, and when you don’t have a plan, or even a passing clue, it’s tricky making accurate predictions.
HEALTH AND EDUCATION
The Liberals have appointed a former teacher as Health minister, and a ‘gentleman’ farmer as Education minister. Neither is suited to their roles.
Mr Ferguson is currently overseeing a bizarrely titled ‘Rescue Committee’ formed to somehow divine a sensible solution to the Royal Hobart Hospital redevelopment project costs blow out (isn’t it comforting that ‘costs blow out’ is now an accepted part of the language of politics).
Meanwhile, the costs associated with the project continue to, well, ‘blow out’, even more spectacularly.
And elective surgery waiting lists get longer, and nurses work more double shifts etc.
Mr Rockliff, whose personal achievement in education extends to a Diploma in Farm Management, is happily spruiking the Liberal’s ‘My Education’ policy – a policy that ‘embeds’ (don’t you love that word) career planning in the curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12, and replaces pathway planners in high schools.
A policy that takes a program, which, by all accounts, was working reasonably well for students, and replaces it with yet another fucked up, ‘research-based’, new-fangled approach.
Mr Rockliff clearly does not understand that a significant proportion of university research, particularly research in the humanities and sciences, is useless crap, the only purpose of which is to allow some half-baked academics with tenure to fulfill their publication requirements.
But let’s not prejudge – both MrRockliff and Mr Ferguson have done nothing of any consequence so far. They MIGHT do something worthwhile, but then again, pigs might fly in formation under the Tasman Bridge. We can only hope.
JUSTICE
The Liberal win last March catapulted the honourable Dr Vanessa Goodwin from Upper House seat warmer to the exalted roles of Attorney-General (plus a few other ministries) and leader of the Government in the Legislative Council.
Dr Goodwin’s new workload has brought a discernible change in her political persona. No longer the giggling ‘pretty young thing’ in the LegCo, with nothing more to do than follow the Liberal Party line and accept random compliments on her razor sharp legal mind, Dr Goodwin now has to field incessant questions from her fellow Councillors, and deal with her numerous portfolio matters.
This has brought out a certain abruptness when she doesn’t get her own way – I mean, how dare those endlessly pontificating old farts and fartesses stall legislation she was supposed to ensure enjoyed safe unimpeded passage through the red chamber.
It was okay to fuck with the Tasmanian Forests Agreement bill but they’ve got a nerve pulling the same stunt with Grand Poobah Harriss’ bills to rebuild the forest industry and send protesters directly to gaol.
Because it wasn’t meant to be this way. Uncle Pete was supposed to get elected and take over the leader’s role in the Upper House, but he was pipped at the post by the hick from the ‘uon. And now she has to be the state’s first law officer as well as the leader (sadly, the only other ‘official’ Liberal in the LegCo, Mrs Hiscutt, is way short of being able to competently take on the position).
On the plus side, Dr Goodwin showed, in Budget estimates, that she is a world class proponent of the sacred political art of stonewalling. She was asked many, many times about the continued payment of the DPP’s massive, currently unearned, salary, and she never wavered from her non-answer. What a champion!
Somewhat less appealingly, Dr Goodwin – a person with a doctorate in law – has, against substantial legal and constitutional advice, been happily peddling Almighty Master Harriss’ ‘protection from protesters’ bill. She’s a real party girl all right.
STATE GROWTH
What state growth, Mr Groom? And where’s that Launceston bound Co-ordinator General we’ve heard so much about, and his offsider, the Regulation Reduction Co-ordinator – they should be prancing about the state like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee by now? Are they lost?
INFRASTRUCTURE, COMMUNITY SERVICES, EVERYTHING ELSE
Nothing new happening here either. MrHidding is keeping a low profile, and Ms Petrusma is, by all accounts, almost totally disconnected from her portfolio – routinely out of contact and seriously uninformed. Sort of a bit player in government, making up the female numbers, but with no speaking part.
CONCLUSION
Do you watch improv comedy, where clever, talented comedians make hilarious stuff up as they go?
Well, the Liberal Government is the same, only it’s improv tragedy – silly, talentless politicians making disastrous stuff up as they go.
They might cobble together a few ideas – forget a vision for the state because that’s definitely not happening – before their three years are up, but holding your breath while waiting is not advised.
*The Subversive Voter is known to the Editor.
• Kim Booth: Gutwein Must Come Clean Over Formal Wage Freeze Offer
• Peter Gutwein: Unions’ prefer to save face instead of members’ jobs
• ABC: Council mergers back on agenda after local government elections
• ABC: Sue Hickey dons mayoral robes in ‘gender-balanced’ council
HISTORY … the more things change, the more they stay the same …
• Geoff Law, May 2012: Unsustainable Logging of State Forest Managed by Forestry Tasmania. Submission to the investigation of PEFC’s complaint concerning ‘unsustainable harvesting’ by Forestry Tasmania (certificate No. 14647 certified by the Australian Forestry Standard, PEFC certified)
Download:
Submission_PEFC_Complaint_Geoff_Law.pdf
• Nick McKim: LibLabs Join Forces to Bury GBE Scrutiny of Forestry Tasmania
• TT Media HERE for everything the Libs spin … and Labor and Green reaction …
• Michelle O’Byrne: Protest bill saga embarrassing for the Liberal Government
