Media release – Jeremy Rockliff, Premier, Minister for State Development, Trade and the Antarctic, Minister for Tourism and Hospitality, Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Member for Braddon; Guy Barnett, Attorney General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Health, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Member for Lyons, 17 March 2024
Restoring Stability, Certainty And Integrity To The Tasmanian Parliament – New ‘Stability Clause’
A re-elected majority Rockliff Liberal Government will act to restore certainty and stability in the Tasmanian Parliament by legislating to require that MPs who quit their party mid-term forfeit their seat in the Parliament.
“Tasmanians deserve to have the Government they voted for,” Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.
“At the last two elections, Tasmanians have voted for a majority Liberal Government, but this has been stolen away by individual MPs resigning from their parties and continuing to sit in the Parliament as independents.
“In many cases, these MPs have proceeded to vote against their original parties, and against policies for which they and their party campaigned for at the previous election.
“During the previous term of Parliament, the situation of two former Liberal MPs becoming independents created great uncertainty for the Government, for our economy and for Tasmania. The positions they took as independents were often in direct contrast with what they supported at the 2021 election when running as Liberal candidates.
“They have benefited from significant party campaign resources in order to be elected. They have been supported by their party volunteers at the election. They have been voted for by their respective communities on the basis of representing a particular party, its values and its policy platform. Yet, once in Parliament, they ignore these facts, turn their backs on their party and its volunteers, and cause chaos.
“This situation is clearly untenable, unfair and lacking integrity on the part of these ‘renegade’ MPs.
“If re-elected, we will amend section 34 of the Constitution Act to provide that if an elected member ceases to be a parliamentary member of the political party for which they were elected, then their seat becomes vacant, and a recount occurs.
“This will result in a member of the Party for which they were first elected replacing them, and would restore the proportionality of the Parliament, as chosen by the voters.
“This new Stability Clause makes it certain that if Tasmanians vote for a majority Rockliff Liberal Government this Saturday, they will get a majority Rockliff Liberal Government.”
Attorney-General, Guy Barnett, said that with the new Stability Clause, the Rockliff Liberal Government is committed to restoring public confidence in the electoral process and stability to our Parliament.
“A similar provision already exists in New Zealand, which like Tasmania has a proportional representation electoral system,” Minister Barnett said.
“Our proposed amendment will mean that if a person is elected as a member of one party, and then chooses to become an independent, or join another political party during the term of the Parliament, they will be required to forfeit their seat.
“We will consult closely with legal, Parliamentary and constitutional experts to ensure that this new Stability Clause, which may also require enabling amendments to other legislation including the Electoral Act, is drafted and implemented in a way which is practical, workable, and consistent with the principles of representative democracy.
“This includes giving consideration to removing from the Parliament MPs who may seek to ‘game’ the Stability Clause by refusing to quit their party despite acting consistently contrary to that Party’s position; as well as providing safeguards to ensure that MPs are not ejected from their Party, and therefore the Parliament, without just cause. This could, for example, include the provision of a 75 per cent “super majority”.
The Premier said that a re-elected majority Liberal Government will commence work on the Stability Clause within our first 100 days and introduce legislation into the Parliament this year, with the intent that it apply to the forthcoming Parliament.
Media release – Dean Winter MP, 17 March 2024
Abetz speaks out against Premier – will he be first to go under “disloyalty ban”?
The Premier’s so-called ‘disloyalty ban’ is already under attack, with arch conservative Eric Abetz caught out making threats to quit the Cabinet and destabilise the Parliament if the Premier sticks to his guns on conversion therapy.
Earlier this month, attendees at an Australian Christian Lobby forum were told by Mr Abetz that he would quit the cabinet and cross the floor if a ban on conversion therapy was supported by the Liberals.
The problem is that his leader, Jeremy Rockliff, has already committed to the legislation. In fact, he released the legislation late last year.
He has not even been elected and Abetz is already publicly challenging Mr Rockliff’s leadership.
With Abetz in the fold, Mr Rockliff will stand no chance in keeping the conservative forces at bay, and who knows what will come next. Are our dying with dignity laws at risk? Will he move to make abortion services more difficult to access?
Mr Abetz has been gagged by Mr Rockliff, even being forbidden from taking his usual slots on Sky News. But that won’t last after the election.
Will the Premier really force the resignation of Eric Abetz if he decides to speak out over these issues? Or is the “disloyalty ban” just another pointless stunt from a desperate Premier?
Another controversial candidate’s future uncertain under Rockliff’s “disloyalty ban”
Another controversial Liberal candidate could be kicked out if Jeremy Rockliff’s desperate “disloyalty ban” is implemented.
RTI documents obtained by Labor (attached) show Jane Howlett explicitly threatening to cross the floor if she didn’t get her way on the fire tax.
What else will the easily disgruntled candidate for Lyons feel the need to be disloyal about?
Following Mr Abetz’s extraordinary claims about conversion therapy, Jeremy Rockliff could soon end up all by himself in the party room.
Editor’s note: see the RTI documents at the bottom of the page.
Media release – Rosalie Woodruff MP, Greens Leader, 17 March 2024
Yet Another Desperate Ploy from the Liberals
Jeremy Rockliff’s announcement he will try to stop MPs who quit their party from sitting as an independent is nothing more than a ridiculous and desperate election ploy. It’s an admission from the Premier that, if re-elected, he has no confidence in his own ability to control his party room, and no confidence in the candidates he has preselected.
The Liberals promised strong, stable majority government at the past two elections, but have fallen into minority and gone to an early election due to their arrogance and refusal to listen to their own MPs voicing community concerns. Rather than responding by committing to running a better, more transparent government that focuses on the issues that matter to Tasmanians, Jeremy Rockliff is instead saying he’ll just kick people out. How ridiculous.
What Jeremy Rockliff is really saying to Tasmanians is – ‘I don’t think I can control my own party’. And he’s probably right, given he could very well be trying to govern in minority while sitting next to anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, anti-LGBTIQA+ candidates and Eric Abetz in the Liberal party room.
Unfortunately problem for the Premier, it’s highly questionable such a move would even be possible, let alone receive the support it will need from MPs across the Parliament – in both houses – for it to become law.
This is a truly ridiculous last-ditch ploy by the Liberals as they feel majority government slipping even further out of reach. The good news for Tasmania? The Liberals’ desperation is a reflection of the opportunity we have before us for change.
Our message to Tasmanians is – when the Liberals are this desperate, it’s a clear sign that change is possible. With a new government and the Greens in balance of power we can finally see real action on the cost of living and housing, healthcare and protecting our forests.
Media release – Independent Member for Lyons, John Tucker MP, 17 March 2024
VOTE NO TO LIBERAL TYRANNY
The Liberal Party’s latest attempt to take total control of the Parliament should be flatly rejected by voters at Saturday’s state election.
There has never been a greater need for independents and minor parties to kill off the Premier’s planned corruption of Parliamentary democracy.
The so-called stability announcement is nothing more than an attempt to give the unelected faceless men and women of the party machines absolute control of the Parliament.
It not only proposes to boot out MPs who move to the crossbench, but anyone who votes against the party position on anything.
It will be Rocky’s rule or else.
This outrageous grab for total control follows a pattern of dictatorial behaviour by a Premier who was not elected by the people but demands total subservience on the basis of the huge vote for Peter Gutwein.
After turning a blind eye for years to the fixing of horse races, the Premier first tried to fix decisions in the Parliament by trying to bind the votes of myself and the Independent Member for Bass.
When that didn’t work, he called the election to avoid scrutiny on the 10 years of shocking failure the Liberals have delivered in health, housing, education, child protection, transport and animal welfare services among others.
Now he’s trying to rig the Parliament itself by handing total control if he wins to the Liberal Party machine.
I defy anyone to name the members of the Liberal pre-selection committee who will have total control of the Parliament if the Liberals win the election, and this shocking deal goes through.
I’m advised it is almost certainly unconstitutional. It looks like a classic Barnett balls-up, like his recall of Parliament in December where he was heading for the exit from the opening bell.
The reason Tasmanians are voting in another early election is once again a unilateral decision by the Premier. The problems don’t start with independent debate and decision making in the parliament, they are entirely the product of the Liberal party room.
The decisions to build a billion-dollar stadium on the Hobart waterfront, to close the Ashley youth detention centre and to adopt a net zero climate change target are just three of the matters which were never discussed in the party room before they were announced. It is vital that Parliament remain the place where such dictatorial behaviour as well as the multiple failures of government can be held to account.
The Premier is getting increasingly desperate. This takeover bid for the Parliament comes on the heels on the questionable launch extravaganza for the proposed Tasmanian AFL team.
The AFL’s active involvement in the election campaign with simultaneous launches across every single electorate five days before the election is outrageous.
The AFL has demanded a billion-dollar stadium as the price of entry for the Tasmanian team.
The Liberal party is the only party which has signed up to pay the bill and it is shocking that the AFL is attempting to influence the election outcome in favour of the Liberals.
The question the Premier needs to answer is how much of the $10.85 million the government has provided this year for the establishment and operation of the Tasmanian team is being used for the launch.
It would be absolutely unacceptable for a single dollar of public money to be used for this backdoor promotion of the Liberal Party with the ultimate aim of taking at least another billion dollars of taxpayers money and handing it to the AFL.
This stinks and I will not be supporting the Stadium deal going forward.
Media release – Independent Member for Bass, Lara Alexander MP, 17 March 2024
Was Rockliff’s Desperate Dictatorship ‘Clause’ Designed To Distract?
Jeremy Rockliff’s Sunday morning announcement that a re-elected Liberal Party would abolish parliamentary democracy should be treated with the contempt it deserved, independent MP and Bass candidate Lara Alexander said today.
Mrs Alexander said it seemed clear that the announcement was designed to capture the news cycle, perhaps to distract from disturbing reports about just when the office of then Police Minister – now Deputy-Premier – Michael Ferguson was made aware of allegations of child abuse against disgraced police officer Paul Reynolds.
On Sunday morning the ABC revealed that Right To Information (RTI) documents showed that then Police Minister Ferguson’s office was notified of child sex abuse allegations against Reynolds before Reynolds’ funeral – with full police honours – was held.
A report into child sex allegations against Reynolds found that he groomed and sexually abused teenage boys in the north and northwest for 30 years, starting in 1988.
According to the ABC report, Mr Ferguson was unable to say definitively when exactly he read the document.
Mrs Alexander said the revelation was a concern, given the Rockliff Government’s appalling record on identifying and bringing to justice child abusers in the ranks of the Tasmanian public service.
“I can only assume that the so-called “Stability Clause” announcement – under which MPs who resign from the party they were elected with will be expelled from the Parliament – must have been designed as a desperate distraction from Mr Ferguson’s woes, because no sane politician would suggest it as a serious proposal,” Mrs Alexander said.
“The only good thing about it is that, if I am fortunate enough to be re-elected, I won’t need a departmental briefing on it because I’m already intimately familiar with the form of Government the Premier is proposing, having grown up under a version of it in communist Romania.”
Mrs Alexander said if the Premier wanted to propose new legislation governing the behaviour of MPs, he should draft a bill calling for the expulsion of Premiers who deliberately avoided oversight to sign secret deals with the AFL committing the state to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.
“My colleague John Tucker and I were branded as ‘rogues’ by the Liberal Party and its media allies, but who is the rogue?” Mrs Alexander said.
“A premier who deliberately goes behind the backs of his Treasurer and Cabinet to sign a secret deal to build a billion dollar stadium nobody wants – and agreeing to extortionate ‘penalty’ clauses, or the MPs who raised the alarm about his rogue behaviour and the secret deal?
“If John and I had not had the ability to resign from the Liberal Party and stay in Parliament to hold the Rockliff Government to account, the appalling AFL deal would still be secret and the disastrous Mac Point Stadium proposal would have been rammed down our throats without any parliamentary scrutiny.”
Mrs Alexander said that the Premier had perhaps been in parliament too long and had lost sight of why he was there in the first place.
“Jeremy Rockliff, just like the rest of us, was elected to serve his constituents in Braddon,” she said.
“Unfortunately, while I believe that the interests of the electors should always be the most important guiding factor in an MP’s decision-making, Jeremy Rockliff clearly no longer shares that view, preferring to place the needs of party above all else.”
Media release – Sue Hickey, independent candidate for Clark, 17 March 2024
Liberals attack on democracy
Not content with neglecting Tasmania’s health system, education, transport infrastructure and community services for the best part of a decade, the Liberals now seem intent on destroying the State’s constitution and parliamentary democracy.
Independent candidate for Clark, Sue Hickey, said all Tasmanians should be deeply concerned at the Liberals latest Trumpian thought bubble intended to remove elected members from parliament if they resign from their party during their term.
“Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals should remember that people, not parties, are elected to Parliament. Parliament was set up to represent the people, not political parties and true democracy demands politicians represent the people first and foremost not the unelected party bosses and scheming political advisers,” Ms Hickey said.
“This has all the appearance of Donald Trump’s desired American dictatorship or Putin’s Russia, where if you don’t do what the leader says, you are cast aside.
“Where is the room for the intelligent, free-thinking politicians in a Liberal Party tightly controlled by the hard-right faction?
“Far from being a so-called broad church, the Liberal Party has become the realm of the of desperate people who now want to stifle democracy for their own ends.”
Ms Hickey said the idea just doesn’t make sense and appears only designed to keep the major political parties in power at the expense of Tasmanian freedom and democracy.
“So where do free-thinking politicians like David O’Byrne and me, who were effectively sacked by their parliamentary parties stand?
“Even though you were elected by the people, the party bosses decide that they don’t like you anymore, so you are kicked out and replaced by a party hack, and that’s democratic?
“Perhaps it’s time for Tasmanians to be made aware of the toxic nature within political parties, and the repression of good ideas and the influence of the party bosses and big political doners?
“The latest brain fade smacks of a desperate political party, interested only in retaining power at all costs. It should be soundly rejected by the parliament and all Tasmanians.”
Ms Hickey said Tasmania needs people in Parliament who can think and talk for themselves, and not be dominated by factional warlords whose instructions their parliamentary party members must follow robotically.
“A broader-based more diverse parliament with strong independents will work. A minority government will have to negotiate with the other parties and independents and Tasmania will get superior decisions, so we’ll all be better off for it.
“If I am elected next Saturday, I commit to work cooperatively with all other elected members to get the very best outcome for Tasmania.”
Media release – Neil Spark, President of Tasmanian Constitution Society, 17 March 2024
‘Stability’ proposal undemocratic
The Liberals’ proposal to force MPs out of parliament who resign from their party is undemocratic. People vote for candidates, not parties. And members’ priority should be their constituents, not their party.
The proposal would take power from MPs and give it to parties. If an MP became aware the parliamentary party leadership was corrupt or behaving unconscionably, they would have the choice of staying and betraying their conscience and the interests of their constituents or be kicked out of parliament.
The proposal would be open to abuse. If a party leader took a dislike to an MP, she or he could force the MP out of the party and parliament.
Andrew Inglis Clark – who devised our brilliant electoral system – was wary of parties’ power and the influence of their unelected leaders and staffers. The Liberals’ proposal undermines the intention of our system.
Very, very dangerous move. Calling this a threat to democracy is not over stating it.
If a member of a party became convinced that the leadership group were actively protecting a group of pedophiles operating in the community… she chooses to resign from the Party. Those party leaders can the expel her from the Parliament?
Try and change these laws. I suspect it will end up – rightly so – in the High Court…. And the laws will be thrown out.
Another believable scenario… member is elected with publicly known progressive views on abortion. The leadership of her party changes leader and that leader changes the platform to very conservative views on abortion. What is she to do?
The worst thought out policy announcement of the whole campaign and that’s saying something. They will be retracting this within days.
RTI documents regarding the Jane Howlett letter
