Wayne Crawford, Mercury: Regime change puts Libs on notice

The regime change was a peaceful progression that will make the Labor Party competitive in the state election due within a year.

The parliamentary Labor caucus has taken a deliberate decision to circumvent the manoeuvring by some in the industrial wing of the party to parachute former Left-wing union official David O’Byrne into the top job.

O’Byrne is a former MP and minister who lost his Franklin seat in the 2014 election, which ended Labor’s 16-year hold on power in Tasmania.

Although there is no question of O’Byrne’s solid Labor roots and commitment, the elevation of yet another prominent unionist to the party leadership – especially at a time when nationally union membership is at a record low 15 per cent of the workforce – would have invited similar attacks from the Liberals as the unrelenting campaign to portray Bill Shorten as a puppet controlled by the CFMEU. As it is, the Hodgman Government has appeared desperate as it resorted to triviality in attempts to find ways of attacking Rebecca White, distributing an anonymously sourced mock resume and criticising her as “Inexperienced”.

As part of the chain reaction set off by Bryan Green’s resignation, Labor also became the first major party in Tasmania to have a wholly female leadership, with Michelle O’Byrne remaining as deputy leader.

White’s election was consistent with Labor’s pattern of elevating women in Tasmania, where the only woman premier has been Labor’s Lara Giddings; women outnumber men on the Opposition benches in the present State Assembly; and federally, all five Labor senators and two of the four Labor MHRs are women.

Resources Minister Guy Barnett is determined to, as he put it, “Fight tooth and nail including in the trenches” to tear up the forestry peace agreement struck by Labor and the Greens with the forestry industry and environmentalists.

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Wayne Crawford, Mercury Talking Point