Tasmania is looking down the barrel of the hung parliament to end all hung parliaments: 10 Labor, 10 Liberal and five Green MPs in the 25-seat Lower House, the House of Assembly, which goes to the polls on March 20.
EMRS opinion polling (23 per cent ALP, 30 per cent Liberals, 22 per cent Greens, 23 per cent undecided) confirms:
the Bartlett Labor Government has run its course;
the Liberals have failed to convince the electorate they should or can govern;
the Greens haven’t put a foot wrong but Tasmanian conservatives will never vote for Tasmanian conservationists;
consequently, one-in-four Tasmanians hasn’t a clue how to vote in three weeks.
If it is 10-10-5, what happens? Premier David Bartlett will advise Governor and former Chief Justice Peter Underwood that Labor should form the new government, go to the House of Assembly and test its confidence.
The first task for the new parliament will be to elect a Speaker. A Labor Speaker taken off the floor of the House would give the Liberal Opposition a one-seat voting majority over the Government and deprive the ALP of a casting vote from the Speaker’s chair; a Liberal Speaker would give Labor the most votes on the floor of the House; a Green Speaker would maintain Labor’s numbers through his/her casting vote. Labor’s ideal nominee for Speaker would be Lyons Green MP Tim Morris (though it would be over the dead body of current Labor Speaker Michael Polley).
If the result is 11-10-4 or 10-9-6, the major party may seek an accommodation with the Greens, though it would be unnecessary. No Green “Opposition” will bring down a minority Liberal or Labor Government in Tasmania and live to tell the tale. They would be annihilated at the ensuing election.
Greens Leader Nick McKim would espouse a position that the Greens would never support a no confidence motion moved by the main Opposition; they would only move their own in the case of gross maladministration or corruption and they would not vote down the minority Government’s Budget. All other legislation would be treated on its merits, which is how it should be. Given this, he would be in no position to bargain for any ministries.
The great tragedy to the people of Tasmania in the apparent outcome of this election is that whoever forms Government will use all of their elected MPs to fill the ministry. That is plainly ridiculous, as the past series of Labor ministries has shown. It demonstrates just how appalling was the 1998 decision of the ALP and the Liberals to reduce the size of the House from 35 to 25. In Tasmania, a Government backbencher is an endangered species.
* Bruce Montgomery is the former Tasmanian correspondent for The Australian.
