Review blames infighting
A REVIEW of Labor’s “devastating” state election loss in 2021 has found that internal fighting “severely harmed” its prospects of winning the election called a year early.
“The first two weeks of the Labor campaign were dominated by Labor talking about ourselves,” the review obtained by the Mercury says.
“The media landscape was dominated by disputes over preselections, candidates and key policies.
“Labor’s campaign messages around TAFE and energy privatisation were drowned out with insider news stories.
“These public displays of internal disputes reflected poorly on Labor generally and severely harmed Labor’s prospects at the election.”
Labor polled just 28.2 per cent, less than one point above the 27.3 per cent in 2014 with the Liberals winning 70,000 more votes.
It is the first stage of a twopart review of the party’s electoral performance and was conducted by interstate Labor officials based on 27 written submissions, interviews with 30 party members and online forums.
The review says “the tragedy
of Labor’s ill-discipline prior to the 2021 election” was that the government was not held to account for “its failures on health, housing and the cost of living for Tasmanians”.
It points to the poor result in the once Labor stronghold of Clark, which returned only one Labor MP after former president Ben McGregor was
forced to stand aside, as significant with a massive swing against it of nearly 20 per cent.
The review argues that there were also factors outside Labor’s control, such as former premier Peter Gutwein’s popularity for his handling of Covid and the election timing.
“The timing of the election was cynical,” it said. “Labor’s
leader Rebecca White was seven months pregnant.
“The election was called to coincide with Tasmania’s Legislative Council elections. Holding lower and upper house elections concurrently has never occurred in Tasmanian electoral history.
“Gutwein’s desire to capitalise on the political impact of
Covid and the Opposition leader’s personal circumstances was evident for all to see.”
The review draws on recommendations from the 2018 election and details what still needs to be done to win government.
“A return to Labor majority government is possible, but only if Labor’s plan for Tasmania, our campaign culture and our election strategy, are established now, rather than in the weeks before an election and the party’s leadership is supported to win elections for the benefit of Tasmanians,” it says.
On a positive note, the 22page review says party members praised secretary Stuart Benson for “turning around the party’s finances, re-engaging with the business community and improving the branch’s fundraising ability”.
It calls for the Parliamentary Labor Party members to develop an election platform “rather than being left to factional debates at State Conference”.
The three reviewers conclude they are optimistic for Labor’s future prospects but there was much work to be done.
One party source questioned the review’s worth and said “there’s nothing new in it”.
Mr Benson said the reviewers would travel to Tasmania to conduct further and final interviews this month for stage two of the review concerning party governance and structure.