Tasmania set for election after no-confidence motion in Premier Jeremy Rockliff passes
Tasmania's parliament has passed a no-confidence motion in Premier Jeremy Rockliff, setting the stage for the fourth state election in seven years.
The motion brought by Labor leader Dean Winter passed by the barest margin, with Labor speaker Michelle O'Byrne casting a deciding vote.
Rockliff's grip on power was lost after a marathon two-day debate finished on Thursday afternoon.
Winter brought the no-confidence motion following the Liberal minority government's budget, winning the support of the Greens and three crossbenchers for an 18-17 vote.
Liberal MPs yelled out 'weak' as the house divided for the vote.
Rockliff, premier since 2022, had conceded the numbers were against him but vowed to 'fight to his last breath' and not resign.
'If Mr Winter's divisive and destructive motion is passed, I will be going to the lieutenant-governor and seeking an election,' he said on Thursday morning.
'This will be advice I will provide to the governor that an election is needed, unless Mr Winter forms government with the Greens.'
Rockliff said Tasmania did not want and could not afford an election.
'Be that on Mr Winter's head. This has been a selfish grab for power. I have a lot more fight in me,' he said.
'The only job Winter is interested in is mine. And I am not going anywhere.'
Winter, opposition leader since Labor's loss last year, said Tasmanians wanted to see the end of Rockliff and the Liberals, which have governed under three different premiers since 2014.
'We are ready for an election,' he said, flanked by his caucus outside a substation in Mt Wellington's foothills, a site chosen to press home arguments against privatisation.
'We will not stand by and let this premier wreck our budget and sell the assets that Tasmanians have built.'
The vote passed just after 3.40pm on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear whether Rockliff would head to Government House to advise officials to dissolve parliament and head to an election.
Winter, who brought the no-confidence motion following a budget in deficit and forecasting a debt blowout of several billion, pushed back against Rockliff's claims he opportunistically engineered the government's demise.
'The premier did confidence and supply agreements with the crossbench when he became premier ... and it was up to him to hold those agreements together.
'He couldn't do it. Those agreements have fallen apart,' he said.
Tasmania went to the polls just 15 months ago, in an election which returned the Liberals to power in minority with just 14 of 35 seats in the lower house.
During the debate, Labor has also lashed Rockliff for delays and cost blowouts to the delivery of two new Bass Strait ferries.
Some crossbenchers and the Greens also have gripes with a new $945 million stadium in Hobart, a condition of the Tasmania Devils entering the AFL in 2028.
Labor supports the team and a stadium, a position they reiterated on Wednesday in writing to the AFL.
The Devils fear an early election would delay the stadium project and put the club's licence at risk.
The Greens had dangled the prospect of forming a minority government with Labor, a prospect Winter has ruled out.
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After a wild few days in the crazy world that is Tasmanian politics, Friday felt eerily quiet. For some, it was a reprieve, a day to breathe and reflect on what had just happened and what might happen next. For others, it was more like the kind of silence before a jump scare. If the past few days were a horror movie with the final act being the toppling of the state's leader, then the weekend is a thriller. An uncomfortable wait in suspense with the knowledge that something unknown is just around the corner. But there are so many scenarios that can play out. What Tasmanians know is that by the end of next week something will have changed in the state's political landscape. The Liberals will still be in charge but with a different leader at the helm — someone like Eric Abetz or Michael Ferguson. Or the world will have turned upside down and Labor Leader Dean Winter would have figured out a way to govern with just 10 MPs, leaning on the support of the crossbench and the Greens. 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While the pro-stadium crowd is enraged that Labor is putting it all in jeopardy — the Liberals are somehow escaping this criticism. Meanwhile, the Liberals are getting the blame because yes — as Labor has pointed out — they are choosing to seek an election instead of a new leader, backed into a corner or not. The fact is, the blood was in the water. People were getting frustrated with the Liberal government. But as angry as people were with a government that's been in power for 11 years, the general sentiment seems to be that it is just too soon for another election Mr Winter's got five weeks to convince Tasmanians he made the right move in toppling the premier, rather than letting the government bleed out a little longer.
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