In Tasmania, neither the Liberals nor Labor seem to comprehend the reality of minority government
Tasmania is off to its fourth election in seven years. For the second time in less than two years the Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff, has called an early poll after his breakdown in relations with the independents who supported his minority government.
In early 2024 he called for an election a year before it was due after two ex-Liberal party independents, John Tucker and Lara Alexander, refused his draconian terms of not voting on Labor or Green bills, motions or amendments without discussing them with the government.
The premier saw parliament as unworkable if they challenged government policy. But they would not agree to be silenced, for example, about the lack of transparency surrounding the AFL stadium proposed for Hobart's waterfront.
The 2024 election did not return the Liberals to majority government. It delivered them 14 seats in an expanded parliament of 35 members of the House of Assembly. Labor won 10 seats, the Greens five, the Jacqui Lambie Network three and three independents were elected.
The Liberals claimed victory. Labor refused suggestions that it could form a minority or coalition government with the Greens, and potentially with independents. On election night the party's then leader, Rebecca White, seemed interested but that faded in the light of day.
Labor had governed in majority from 1998 until 2010, when it formed a quasi-coalition with the Greens, who sat within cabinet as ministers but with the ability to oppose government policy and legislation.
This arrangement provided stable government for four years, with the Greens ministers Nick McKim and Cassie O'Connor well regarded as hard-working and effective. But Labor still blamed the Greens for its 2014 loss of government after 16 long years in power.
The Liberals have governed since 2014, in majority until 2018. Their majority was regained in 2021 but subsequently lost. Their vote has gradually eroded to its low point today.
Labor's vote has been stuck in the doldrums post-2014, with White taking the party to three consecutive election losses and blaming the Greens for destroying the party – rather than Labor's failure to differentiate itself from the Liberals.
Polling in Tasmania mirrors this year's federal election result. The Liberal and Labor votes are hovering around 30%, eclipsed by the combined Greens, Lambie Network and independents at about 40%. If accurate this will surely deliver another minority government.
But those results still might deliver more seats to the Liberals than Labor, despite parliament's no-confidence motion in Rockliff, his refusal to step down, and the fact that his government has become embattled, tired and ineffective.
Labor's leader, Dean Winter, brought the no-confidence motion, setting in train the events that have led to the early election. This will win his party no fans. Labor has also backed the Liberals on the stadium proposal, now opposed by 59% of Tasmanians.
The Greens stepped up and offered to work with Labor so an election could be avoided. But Winter travelled to Government House to assure the governor, Barbara Baker, that he and his party would not countenance working with the Greens.
He will be hoping that Tasmanian voters cannot discern between state and federal politics, that they equate Tasmanian Labor with all its woes with the Albanese government, and that the 9% swing to Labor at the federal election is replicated.
A millstone for the major parties is Tasmania's debt crisis, with net debt forecast to reach $10.9bn by 2029. Neither party has offered credible remedies and both will surely be constrained for once from electoral pork-barrelling.
So the crossbench is likely to expand at the 2025 poll and, with it, the available talent for supporting minority government and playing a role in a quasi-coalition government. Indeed the Greens and the crossbench have the numbers to form their own minority government.
But neither the Liberals nor Labor seem to comprehend the reality of minority government. Neither party seems to have learned from previous experiences of it. And neither has grasped that a Labor-Greens quasi-coalition offers a solid and workable arrangement.
In Tasmania, the major parties simply have to come to terms with the fact that the days of majority government are done and will be until they significantly rebuild faith with the electorate. Until then, they need to deal cooperatively with the Greens and the crossbench.
Kate Crowley, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Tasmania, is an expert on minority government and the editor of Minority Government: The Liberal-Green Experience in Tasmania
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