A week’s a long time in politics

Independent Ogilvie a gift for government, a disaster for Labor and a kick in the shins for the Speaker,

WITH the new independent member for Clark Madeline Ogilvie’s statement this week that she believes that “there is no reason why this government shouldn’t be allowed to run its full term”, Premier Hodgman must have thought all his Christmases had come at once.

One of the number one rules of politics is that things are rarely as bad as they seem, nor are they as good.

Just three months ago the Hodgman Liberal Government was in near crisis after a bad first year of its second term.

Government members were despondent and Labor, while not quite measuring the curtains in the Premier’s office, were ebullient about the prospects of a change of government — perhaps even without the inconvenience of an election.

As I wrote in this newspaper in June, decisive action had to be taken and shortly after it was, with a ministerial reshuffle resetting the agenda and a bold decision taken to keep the Speaker on the outer. A bit of fleet footwork from the Premier quelled her threats of rebellion and from there the Government hasn’t looked back.

Meanwhile, reality dawned on Labor as they realised they couldn’t just expect to be handed government on a platter and would have to work for it, resulting in the correct (albeit six years too late) decision to burn their house down and start all over again.

Last week, Speaker Hickey politically self-immolated with

her calls for more pay for herself. And while she might want to console herself with another of my number one rules of politics — that the (media) train always moves on — unfortunately, sometimes the train leaves some baggage at the station, and there’s no doubt Ms Hickey’s actions and statements will come back to haunt her should she seek reelection.

And finally, the resignation of Scott Bacon and the return of Madeleine Ogilvie as an independent has dramatically changed the dynamics in Tasmanian politics.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a disaster for Labor, a kick in the shins to Speaker Hickey, and welcome breathing space for the Government.

Ms Ogilvie is the first independent to sit in the House of Assembly since it was reduced to 25 members in 1998, which means that based on history at least she will struggle to be re-elected as an independent at the next election.

But in the meantime Ms Ogilvie is now one of the most powerful members of the chamber. In fact, rather than sharing the balance of power with Speaker Hickey, she’s actually usurped her because the Speaker only votes in instances of a tied vote. If Ms Ogilvie votes with the Liberals it will give them a floor majority and Ms Hickey won’t even get a vote.

For her part, Ms Hickey will be desperate not to go from chocolates to boiled lollies, and it would be foolish to expect she’ll sail quietly into the night.

Ms Ogilvie has copped criticism for sitting as an independent after running as a Labor candidate and being ultimately elected on Scott Bacon’s Labor votes. This criticism is not unreasonable — but for the fact that it remains unclear whether Labor actually wanted her back. Who knows what was said privately between Labor leader Rebecca White and Ms Ogilvie, but Ms White certainly failed to publicly state that she wanted her back in the Labor caucus.

This reticence for Labor to embrace Ms Ogilvie really does defy all political logic, reducing their numbers on the floor to just nine and just one out of five in Clark, a traditional Labor stronghold, as well as handing the Government a potential getout-of-jail-free card on the floor of the Parliament.

It undermines Labor’s recent tough decisions about splitting with both the Greens and Speaker Hickey, and raises the question: are they faking it?

For its part, now is not the time for the Government to rest on its laurels. While the Government will still face a hostile Upper House, the period of relative political stability it is likely to now be afforded is an opportunity to really knuckle down and take Tasmania to the “next level”, as promised at the election.

For example, despite the Government’s budgeted record infrastructure spend, official data shows the public infrastructure spend has now declined for two quarters in a row. Tasmania’s bureaucracy is notoriously slow at getting money out the door for infrastructure and these figures suggest there will be a massive underspend against budget this year.

Yet, at the same time the Government is still driving to achieve the $450 million in savings to agencies, such as

health — something I warned in this newspaper months ago would come back to bite.

We may end up in the farcical situation where the budget is massively in surplus because the Government was fast to cut expenditure but too slow to roll out its infrastructure commitments, and wears the pain of running the razor through the budget for no reason.

And, while the Government is to be commended for its push for a Tasmanian AFL team, the AFL Taskforce is demonstrating the perils of outsourcing policy to third parties with no expertise in real-politik. The suggestion of a new $250 million-plus AFL stadium on Macquarie Point (or in fact anywhere in Hobart) is “courageous” to say the least and the Government would be wise to rule the idea out, urgently.

For all the changed dynamics of the Parliament, the number one rule of politics still applies: elections in Tasmania are won — and lost — in the North.

Finally, there has been some commentary on Ms Ogilvie’s decision to use the podcast produced by the firm at which I am a partner — Font PR — to announce her status as an independent. For the record: Ms Ogilvie is the president of the Southern Football League, which is a client of Font. We invited Ms Ogilvie onto our podcast in her personal capacity, and she agreed. Given the significant public interest we provided the

Mercury with an embargoed section of the interview for publication the next day. No money changed hands between any parties, and Ms Ogilvie herself is not a client of Font.