A lucky MP who got away with it

Greg Barns sums up the premiership of outgoing Liberal Leader Will Hodgman

SAMUEL Taylor Coleridge would have recognised what happened in Tasmania last week when Premier Will Hodgman announced his resignation. The author of the epic poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner wanted his readers to indulge in “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment”.

The accolades Hodgman received from many in the media, all of the Liberal Party, and self-serving lobbies was extraordinary. One would have thought this was a political leader who took hard decisions and turned an economy and society into a nirvana. The reality is he never took hard decisions, did not have a reform bone in his body, and, facing the reality of his masterly inactivity over the past six years in the form of a budget mess, decided to walk.

This was a leader who only three times in his six years as premier took decisions consistent with economic liberalism. They were to open the cosseted tourism and taxi sectors to competition from Airbnb and Uber and to extend schools from years 7- 12.

Hodgman’s obsession with tourism will bite badly because while he and the mouthpieces for that industry can point to jobs created over the past six years, tourism is fickle and the employment tends to the low skilled and low paid.

This is not a premier who deserves to take a bow. Like the other leader Tasmanians love to laud, Jim Bacon who was premier from 1998 until just before his untimely death in 2004, Hodgman got lucky with Canberra. GST receipts and the grants cycle were timed nicely for he and Treasurer Peter Gutwein. Benign economic circumstances suited Hodgman because taking hard decisions was not his forte. He wanted to be liked. There was no serious tax reform, no substantial downsizing and selling off of the bloated public sector, and with the exception of same-sex marriage where he had cover from his federal colleagues, social reform was a no-go area.

To say Tasmania is better off than when Hodgman came to office is meaningless and ignores the appalling economic and fiscal conditions Lara Giddings endured. Remember the GFC? It took the wind out of the sails of every developed world government.

What those who are in a state of suspended belief about Hodgman need to understand is that when the next downturn hits Tasmania Hodgman’s policy of fiscal laziness will ensure that Tasmania is in a fine mess.

Budget commentator John Lawrence and Legislative Council MP Ruth Forrest have pointed to Gutwein’s addiction to accounting tricks to make budgets look better. There has not been one reformist budget in six years. Lawrence summed up the laziness of the Government budget strategy in a piece on June 14 last year on these pages: “When all outlays are considered the Government is not running surpluses. For the current year 2019 and the next four years, the budget papers indicate $1.5 billion of spending in excess of receipts. If that pattern is replicated for a subsequent period, that’s another $1.5 billion. That assumes of course the Government can find $450 million in savings over the next four years as required by this year’s budget.”

When economist Saul Eslake called for asset sales and land tax reform the always safe Mr Hodgman ran a mile.

In the world where belief is not suspended the record of Mr Hodgman is to preside over an exhausted, self-serving and incompetent health system. His solution was to throw money at the problem which is what politicians who are incapable of hard decisions do. But Hodgman’s most lamentable failure was to sit on his hands and refuse to embark on radical reform to solve Tasmania’s level of homelessness.

Over time history and reasoned objective analysis overtakes suspension of disbelief . In Mr Hodgman’s case it will not be kind. He will be seen as a lucky politician who got away with it for a while.