In the Speaker’s corner

THERE is widespread unease in Tasmania about how the Liberals campaigned in the March state election.

This is being vastly underestimated by those who erroneously dismiss any public expression of discontent as sour grapes from Labor and the Greens.

There are some who voted for the Hodgman Government, even within its campaign team, who found themselves at odds with the way the party came to power.

The main causes of this discomfort are the bankrolling of the Liberal campaign by the gaming lobby and the sly way some policies were not so much released as put quietly behind a tree when no one was looking — most pertinently, the contentious bid to water down gun laws, which became a public issue the day before the election, too late for this newspaper to even put to ink.

I have not spoken with Sue Hickey, but I was told on good authority long before she pulled the rug from under the Government by swiping the role of Speaker that she was among those who felt apprehensive.

Some have speculated on her motivation in accepting Labor and the Greens’ nomination this week as Speaker.

They suggest she is disgruntled at being overlooked for a ministry or she is driven by unbridled ambition or that, having considered standing for Labor in the past, she is a Smurf — blue on the outside but red in the middle.

However, just days after the state election I was told that Hickey was struggling with her conscience over how the party campaigned and how it was claiming a mandate for policies that only the most one-eyed supporter could suggest had been publicly debated or passed any sort of pub test.

In the days after the election the list of undisclosed policies for which the party was claiming a mandate grew into the hundreds.

Could Hickey be making a principled, Homeric stand in claiming the role as Speaker?

Could she be acting in the long Liberal tradition of following her conscience?

As Speaker, Hickey has snared the casting vote on issues where Labor and the Greens are in step with each other but out of step with the Government. I suspect gaming machine licensing and gun laws could be two of these.

The Hodgman Government has been mired in revelations of secrecy and backroom deals — from a million-dollar grant to a major brewing company for heaven knows what to giving millions of dollars to a group that had campaigned on its behalf during the election.

During the campaign the Liberals refused, quite legally but hardly ethically, to say who was paying for their unprecedented TV, radio, social media and newspaper presence, and kept using statistics to support their gaming machine policy after they were independently shown to be patently false.

One Liberal spin doctor lost her job for trolling online.

There is a whiff about the Government’s dealing with cable car proponents, with decisions made on the last day in office before calling the election to tales of its spin doctors having controlled how the project was publicly portrayed. T HE image emerging is in stark contrast to the public perception of Will Hodgman as a reliable, honest and caring family man with a beautiful wife and wonderful children; a husband and father who stood for decency and upstanding values.

There are many Liberal voters, especially rusted-on supporters, who feel betrayed by Hickey, and with good reason, but there are others who feel it is time for the Premier to drag his Government into line with his reputation for decency and honesty.

A decent, honest government is upfront with the people and does not do secret deals.

A decent, honest government does not hide things from the public and allow unelected, unaccountable spin doctors to set the agenda and script its performance from the shadows.

These were the nebulous traits that led to former Labor leader Paul Lennon’s resignation as premier in 2008, with a preferred premier rating of 17 per cent, and began the crumbling decline in Labor’s electoral support to a level it eventually had to rely on the Greens to form government.

Hickey’s startling entrance on the state political stage will force all parties to the table where they will need to cooperate and keep lines of communication open or go down in flames.

My bet is it will not be long before the Cheshire grins disappear from the faces of the Greens and Labor as the new Speaker sticks to her Liberal values and sides with the Government on most issues that her vote is necessary.

Their grins may even turn to grimaces when the former lord mayor pulls them into order with a tongue lashing in the manner she became famous for in Hobart City Council meetings.