How to form a minority government. History as it actually happened, as opposed to common media myth.

In the lead up to the 2010 election, as Premier I said “I will not do a deal with Greens in order to stay in Government.” (I kept that promise but I accept some will argue there is some political word play here.)

During the campaign I said at a leaders debate in Launceston: if the Liberal party secured more seats than Labor it would “seem reasonable and fair” for Hodgman to get the first chance to form Government. They did not secure more seats than us.

Then in response to a follow up question from Hodgman I said (foolishly in retrospect) that if the Libs won more overall votes than Labor they should get a chance to form government.

Following the election I wrote to the Governor and provided him with advice consistent with those statements above.

My written advice said: “In the current circumstances it is my advice that you invite the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Will Hodgman MP, to indicate to you whether he is willing and able to accept a commission to form a Government.”

And further, “Should Mr Hodgman satisfy you that he is willing and able to form a Government, it would be my intention to resign from my ministerial office of Premier and to surrender my Commission as Premier of Tasmania….”

“Thereafter, Mr Hodgman would provide you with advice about the formation of the new ministry and the other administrative arrangements.”

Underwood, a wonderful human and Governor, as a former Chief Justice spent many days considering his position, studying law and precedent before releasing his considered position.

The day before His Excellency had indicated he would release his decision, Nick McKim and the Greens publicly announced they would support Labor on supply and confidence.

I had not spoken with Nick or any intermediary or asked anyone to do so on my behalf – before, during or after the election. Nick will confirm this I am sure. I understand Hodgman did try to start talks with the Greens.

The following day the Governor released a multi page decision on why he believed it was incumbent on me to return to the Parliament to see if I could form a Government.

The Greens had already guaranteed supply and confidence – so it was then inevitable we would be returned to Government.

That night I went to a private party and drank a substantial amount of excellent Lark whisky. The godfather himself, Bill Lark, was there from my vague recollection and his tasting notes were, as always magnificent.

On the way to that party I called Nick McKim from the car – the first time I had spoken to him since the Parliament had risen – and suggested we meet up for a bike ride and a chat.

To me this seemed sensible as we were clearly already secure in the knowledge we would be returning to Government – so the question was then: how do we make the Parliament work for the benefit of all Tasmanians?

I believe Nick was of the same mind. How do we make the parliament work when there is no majority of seats held by one party?

The next day – admittedly suffering a quite painful hangover – Nick and I met at the Fern Tree Tavern and rode our bikes to St Crispin’s Well on the Pipeline Track. There were some quite surprised faces of walkers on the track that day.

St Crispin’s Well is a beautiful spot on kunyanyi/Mt Wellington with some nice seating around a small waterfall. It was a beautiful day for a ride and a chat.

I joked about Shakespeare’s Henry V brilliant St Crispin’s Day speech.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition.”

Nick was always a much more effective and intelligent opponent than the then leader of “her Majesty’s opposition” ever was – so it gave me some comfort to “gentle his condition”.

Nick, perhaps better read than me, quoted Benjamin Franklin… “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

And in some ways we achieved both outcomes: we hung together, and were subsequently hung.

We only agreed two things that day…. Firstly, that we would not repeat the mistakes of the Field/Brown deal that forced parties to change policy positions rapidly in order to form an accord. No policy positions would be discussed that day.

Secondly, we agreed that what we needed was an open and transparent protocol through which we could deal with policy differences maturely and without drama… in the end, we agreed the Parliament would be the ultimate policy making tool.

In effect, where we disagreed vehemently with each other on policy the Parliament would have the final say. We put this protocol in place by an exchange of letters (that are publicly available).

With this in place, I invited Nick to join the Cabinet as a Minister and Cassy O’Connor as a Cabinet Secretary (that subsequently became a Ministerial position) because they were both talented policy people.

Both Nick and Cassy proved to be excellent, competent and capable, cabinet ministers.

Even with them in the Cabinet, the Government could still potentially lose votes on the floor of the Parliament – as Kim Booth was determined to make things as uncomfortable for both his Green colleagues and us as he could.

But because we had a robust protocol in place and took a mature, mutually respectful approach to policy differences – we never did.

Both Underwood’s statement and the letters between me and Nick McKim should be studied by anyone interested in making government and parliament work for the next 50 years in Tasmania – where it is inevitable we will have more minority governments than majority.

THE END… or I hope the beginning of more mature Parliaments, that reflect the will of the people and do better public policy than we have seen for the last decade.

David Bartlett was Premier of Tasmania from May 2008 to January 2011. This post was compiled from a series of Tweets published by Bartlett on 4 April 2024.