It’s often said that if you want a friend in politics, get a dog. I don’t know how many dogs Premier Jeremy Rockliff currently owns, but based on the experience of the last year he might be soon needing to get a kennel licence.
During the past six months, an unprecedented three members of his Government have decided that their political genius is such that they are better off sitting as in Parliament as independents, rather than Liberals.
Fortunately, the most recent of them, Elise Archer, eventually did the right thing and resigned from Parliament altogether, allowing a Liberal (Simon Behrakis) to take her seat on a countback. But not before she had forced the Government to the very edge of an early election, along the way fancifully accusing the Premier of breaking the law, and laughably claiming (apparently with a straight face) that she got elected in spite of the Liberal Party, not because of it.
Meanwhile, the original political traitors, John Tucker and Lara Alexander, continue to sit in the Parliament in seats they have stolen from the Liberal Party. And while they claim to want to provide political stability and certainty, it’s clear that the pledge they have both made in writing to provide the Liberals with confidence and supply is not worth the paper it’s written on. Indeed, it seems that every other week they are publicly musing about whether they will support Labor’s latest no confidence motion.
The Liberal Party was elected in 2014 (51.5 per cent of the primary vote), 2018 (50.2 per cent) and 2021 (48.7 per cent), each time with a clear mandate and enough seats to form a majority government. The only reason that the Government is now in minority and seemingly perpetual instability is because of the defections of Ms Alexander and Mr Tucker, and the short-lived defection of Ms Archer.
The minority government that they have brought about is not the will of the voters, it is nothing more than their own short-term selfishness.
And yet, extraordinarily, Ms Alexander and Mr Tucker – and indeed some within the Liberal Party who should know better – are actively contemplating a return to the Liberal fold.
You’ve got to wonder at their chutzpah and lack of self-awareness that they could think that they can throw the government into disarray, publicly attack and criticise the Premier on an almost daily basis, and haul a former colleague in Guy Barnett off the Privileges Committee, and still expect that at some point they’ll be welcomed home with open arms.
To the extent that this option is viable (and to be clear I’ll tear up my own Liberal membership card if it does happen) it is entirely due to the belief of some that it would restore stability to the Government. Unfortunately, the Liberals contemplating this strategy foolishly think that rewarding disloyalty and appeasement is a price worth paying.
Now consider the alternative. Our Hare-Clark electoral system has many flaws, but one of its benefits is that if a member resigns, there is no need for a by-election. Rather, a countback is held and because the resigning member is elected almost exclusively on their political brand rather than their own personal popularity, almost without fail a member of their former political party is elected to replace them. We saw this graphically demonstrated after Elise Archer’s resignation, when nearly 90 per cent of her number 2 two votes were for fellow Liberal candidates.
Requiring MPs to resign their seat if they switch team mid-stream would certainly come with its own complications. But what it would do is ensure that voters continue to get the Government they voted for, regardless of individual MPs egos. At the very least, it would give them pause for thought before wilfully thumbing their nose at voters as Ms Alexander, Mr Tucker and (briefly) Ms Archer have all done.
In January this column caused some consternation within Government when I pleaded with them to “stop doing stupid things” in the year ahead. One of those stupid things was to cave to pressure from the Treasury bureaucrats and change the way in which Tasmania’s fire levy is collected.
Unfortunately, the Minister chose to ignore my free advice and recently released two proposed alternative models for consultation. In political terms it’s hard to tell the difference between the two, so let’s just call them the “frying pan” and the “fire”. The “fire” model hits households with increases in the fire tax of up to 300 per cent, commercial around 800 per cent and farmer up to 1,000 per cen. The “frying pan” model reduces the hit on households to “only” around 200 per cent, but makes up for it by stinging the commercial and farming sectors even harder.
At this point, the changes are opposed by the Local Government Association of Tasmania, individual mayors, the Property Council, Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tasmanian Small Business Council, and the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association. Not to mention voters.
On top of that, Liberal renegade John Tucker has publicly opposed the changes, meaning they’ll almost certainly fail to pass the Parliament.
It really does take a special sort of political genius on the part of Minister Ellis to upset pretty much everyone with a change no one asked for, except for a few faceless bureaucrats.
As has been suggested, if more money is needed for our fire and emergency services, why not simply fund it out of the budget, like pretty much every other government service. After all, that’s what people already pay their taxes for.
Disclosure: Font PR was recently professionally engaged to assist the Minister in seeing the light on this matter.