Just five days in and already it’s looking like an election that is a flogs’ breakfast of warmed-over gunge that was neither wholesome nor instagrammable to begin with.

The Liberals are now into their third day of carping about the Dean Winter non-preselection for Labor in Franklin, allegedly plotted by ‘faceless men’ of the party backrooms.

One would think that our overlords might have had some grand theme of their own to inspire us with to set an early tone? Securing Tasmania’s future is the slogan, at best a wan riff of the ‘keeping Tasmanians safe’ that has been in every Liberal Party media release for the last year of COVID-19 crisis and aftermath.

The implication, intended or not, is that the future is more sellable than the present, given that the implementations of the PESRAC recommendations and indeed other slush announced as ‘stimulus’ has yet to really get going.

That much at least is the Liberals’ own fault, with the Premier rushing to the polls a year before he had to on the flimsiest pretext of not wanting to govern in minority. Sue Hickey’s declaration that she would have provided confidence and supply, and former independent Madeline Ogilvie’s lightning conversion to the Liberals, have given the lie to that.

Presumably the Liberal apparatchiks made the choice that better now than after more damage – probably economic (jobs), health (slow/botched vaccine rollout) and social (treatment of women, in particular) crashes down from the federal level.

Even so, it’s hard to recall an early election where the party in power didn’t even have its own ducks lined up. The full candidate list was only confirmed this week, and the fields and byways of the island are yet to be cluttered with their usual election run-up florescence of corflute posters.

Labor has been ready-ish for a while, but early despatches have seen them struggling for a key theme. Initial planks are TAFE, jobs, a privatisation fear campaign around Hydro and can’t-trust-Gutwein.

TAFE is a good issue for Labor, but not one with the resonance they would wish it to have. The last year has seen UTAS relax its entry for mature age students as well as provide special pathways for Year 12s to recognise 2020 difficulties in learning. The federal government has thrown a fair amount at job readiness and training, and then there is the Youth Navigators program being rolled out.

Similarly on jobs, although unemployment is higher than it was earlier in the Gutwein government’s term, roughly speaking it’s lower than what people feared and that’s a positive. The Premier and his party are still riding high with the handled-the-crisis halo that recently returned convincing wins for state premiers in Queensland and Western Australia.

The last EMRS poll in February showed support for the Liberals steady at 52% with Labor improving slightly to 27%. Contrast these with the May 2018 election results – Liberal 50%, Labor 33% – and it’s difficult to detect much dissatisfaction the Liberals.

Can’t-trust-Gutwein is also on a hiding with his preferred Premier rating at 61%, against Labor leader Rebecca White at 26%, both unchanged since November.

White is still yet to find her mojo, and unfortunately for her she no longer has any space in which to do that. She has no record as such as a get-things-done politician and history shows that Tasmanians tend to vote for that, unless the incumbents are completely on the nose. Clearly, they aren’t.

With Labor becalmed in the twenties, and well away from the roaring forties that might actually deliver them a majority, their reflexive ‘we will govern in majority or not at all’ was sounding even more shrill than usual.

Labor have also been damaged the Ogilvie affair. If a person votes for a Labor candidate, and they end up being elected but then sit as an independent before turning into a blueshirt, what are you voting for when you vote Labor?

Labor’s best shot fired thus far was probably their opening line of the campaign: Premier gives up before the job is done. Clearly the Gutwein riposte will be that management of the pandemic got in the way of fixing health, housing and other long-running bugbears. To give the man his credit, he did in fact mention these in his vision outlined shortly after becoming Premier.

Timing you would suspect is also against Labor and the Greens. Their style of people-centred canvassing works better over a long period of time when you can reach a fair proportion of households, but their doorknocking with known candidates will now be compressed into a hectic 4-weekend period, half of which is school holidays.

Cassy O’Connor was very composed as she spoke to the media on the day the election was called. The party will need all her savvy to improve on their 2018 showing, although the latest polling – 14%, well up from the 10% they garnered then at the ballot boxes – is promising for them.

Critically, they look well placed in their currently-held seats of Clark and Franklin. The shenanigans surrounding Hickey and Ogilvie will benefit O’Connor who has been steady, mature and even stateswoman-like in the current term, with the Premier mistakenly referring to her recently as ‘the Leader of the Opposition’.

In Franklin, the absence of Mister 2.4 quotas Will Hodgman will make things easier for the Greens’ Rosalie Woodruff who just scraped home last time on leakage of preferences from other parties. A former Huon Valley Councillor, she has been a predictably strong voice on environmental issues like the excesses of salmon farming.

The Greens have also been able to step into the pokies vacuum created by Labor who walked back their opposition after defeat in 2018. This is heartland stuff and Labor may live to regret it, particularly as this time around there will not be the flood of hotelier cash that engorged Liberal coffers.

And frustratingly, at least for those of us who cling nostalgically to notions of accountability and transparency, one of the coronavirus-ate-my-homework jobs left undone by Gutwein was any significant electoral reform, including donation laws.

Beyond the three parties currently represented in the Tasmanian Parliament, the latest from the the minor parties registered in Tasmania is:
Jacqui Lambie Network – party still registered but inactive.
Australian Federation Party – “Yes we will be running a few candidates including myself (Justin Stringer).
Shooters, Farmers and Fishers – “Yes we are standing candidates.”
Animal Justice Party – “We hope to stand candidates (at least 1) in all divisions. We’re still in the process of finalising our candidates, we will be in touch as soon as we’re ready to announce; we anticipate early next week.”

Seats

It is difficult to see that a higher Greens’ vote across the board will get them another seat. Braddon remains almost a no-go zone for the Greens’ brand of politics, and if Craig Garland stands again – now Local Party, but with the party registration yet to be finalised, will be present on the ballot paper as an independent – he will hoover up some of the discontent vote.

Ironically, the looming nightmare for both the Labor and Liberal parties in Clark is of their own making. The Liberals booted Hickey of their own accord, while Ogilivie was returned on a recount after the resignation of Scott Bacon yet the Labor Party made no significant overtures to bring her back into the fold.

With Glenorchy Mayor Kristie Johnston in the mix as independent, and presumably to continue receiving high profile endorsement from Andrew Wilkie, there is a real possibility of Clark returning 1 Labor (Haddad), 1 Liberal (Archer or Ogilvie), 1 Green (O’Connor) and 2 independents (Hickey and Johnston).

For majority government, either Labor or Liberal would then need 12 seats from the other 4 electorates. If Franklin splits 2 Liberal 2 Labor and 1 Green as it did last election, that equation becomes 10 seats required from Bass, Braddon and Lyons.

In other words, a 4-3-3 result. Garland’s presence will make it difficult for the Liberals to get 4 seats in Braddon as they did in 2014 when Will Hodgman brought the Liberals to power.

There is no scenario in which Labor are likely to get 10 seats out of those three electorates. Their announced line-up contains no heavy hitters; the best of the lot is probably Janie Finlay in Bass who nearly pinched the LegCo seat eventually won by Jo Palmer. Other councillors such as Central Coaster Amanda Diprose give the team a solid if unexciting look, but as of writing Labor were still two candidates short in Lyons.

While Anita Dow and Shane Broad could be expected to hold in Lyons, Labor has not done itself any favours with its faffing about on the issue of the Westbury Prison and the major projects legislation which may facilitate it, along with the monstruous Cambria Green development proposed for the east coast.

The Liberals go into the northern and rural seats with a fair bit of baggage: Adam Brooks (returning after an Integrity Commission report lead to to his resignation), John Tucker and Mark Shelton (unpromotable underachievers), Felix Ellis (newbie who replaced Joan Rylah). Arguably even Michael Ferguson, though recognisable, is surely wearing out his welcome as a minister terminally unable to deliver.

All this suggests that Clark will be a battleground as both Labor and Liberal need their 2 seats and to hold off the charge of the independents.

Not only was Ogilvie’s conversion necessary, it is now absolutely essential that she hold Clark for the Liberals to return to their slim majority.

This election is the Liberals to lose. Conceivably, shrinking to 12 seats and being still the largest party in the chamber but not in majority is the Pyrrhic victory they will desperately seeking to avoid.

Get your key election equipment ready now.

Alan Whykes is Chief Editor of Tasmanian Times. Politically he is a former member of The Greens, the ALP and the Country Liberal Party (NT).

LINK: Tasmanian Electoral Commission.